When should you stop exercising?

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stegeem
stegeem Posts: 143 Member
edited January 6 in Fitness and Exercise
Sometimes I do 10,000 steps in a day and I'm not tired and want to go back out. Is there a maximum amount of time you should spend being active? what if you love it? sometimes having trouble eating all the calories back.

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  • ddsb1111
    ddsb1111 Posts: 753 Member
    edited January 6
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    Try not to over think it. Be as active as you like as long as you’re not injuring yourself. As for the calories, you’ll find it evens itself out after a while. Eating below your calories is common for many people at first but then they eventually realize they really want those calories lol. Do your best to get close and see what your average weight loss is after 4-6 weeks. Then adjust.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,187 Member
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    There isn't an absolute limit. It varies with fitness level and exercise type.

    Think about it: Elite endurance athletes spend hours daily during training seasons (which is most of the time). They're working at intensities that would kill us normal people, and doing it frequently for duration.

    Overdoing for your current fitness level can be counterproductive for both weight loss and fitness development. Obviously, you want to avoid that . . . but you can perceive it, to some extent. It can be easy to overdo out of enthusiasm during a honeymoon period.

    Feeling fatigued or weak, losing weight too fast . . . those are danger signs. (Too fast loss would be more than about 0.5% to 1% of current weight per week, with a bias toward the lower end of that range unless severely obese.)

    It's harder (not impossible) to overdo mild intensity exercise like walking. It's easier to overdo high intensity exercise.

    I'd encourage you to think about what time budget you want to give to exercise long term, a time budget that will leave you with good overall life balance. (Good overall life balance means enough time and energy for family, social life, job, home chores, and anything else important to you for happiness.)

    Losing weight is great, but even greater is keeping at a healthy weight long term. That latter depends on figuring out long-term sustainable habits that are easy to stick with, almost on autopilot.

    Best wishes!
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 1,639 Member
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    Stop exercising, lol…
  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 13,263 Member
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    If your main exercise is walking, and if you're new to it, don't push yourself too hard. You may feel good now, but you can have delayed soreness. That would slow you down for a few days. Add activity slowly so your body can adjust. You'll get a good feeling about how much you can increase after a while.

    That 10,000 step thing was thought up by a company that made pedometers. It's somewhat arbitrary. Some research suggests that 7500 to 8500 steps a day has a real benefit to health and longevity. More generally doesn't hurt as long as your body is ready.

    When I started running, my goal each run would be "just a little farther than last time." I added distance slowly. I need to get started doing that again, and when I start, there's no way I'll go back to where I was. Same with weights - I got back to the gym and thought I dialed it back enough. Nope. I was sore for days and it impacted what else I could do.

    I figure I get about 2112 steps per mile. Yes, I did some measurements, and while it's not exact, it IS a palindrome and it was a pretty good album almost a half century ago. Ten thousand steps for me is a little less than five miles. It's not uncommon for me to take a five mile walk in addition to any other steps I get. If I am hiking, it's more energetic than just a walk. I sometimes hike much farther than that. It feels good, and I don't hurt after. If I had tried a five mile hike after being inactive a long time, or never active, I'd probably be knocked to the floor for a day or so. Go slow! And when you know you can keep going - KEEP GOING! I was on a long hike last year - probably about ten miles, and I was almost back to my truck. I wasn't ready to be done, so I did another three mile loop on a different part of the forest. I was ready for a beer when I got home, but other than that it was great.
  • elisa123gal
    elisa123gal Posts: 4,287 Member
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    If you think you may be obsessed ... or letting other important parts of your life go for the sake of exercising more... you may want to think about it. My personal opinion is many overweight people have a problem with balance when it comes to diet and exercise. . It is all or nothing... they overeat and have to come on here to try and lose it.. Can't tell you how many posts i've read where the topic is how they're having trouble eating all their caloires each day

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