Minimum amount of exercise

I am just trying to figure out if anyone knows how much exercise you should be getting a day to actually lose weight. I've heard 30 minutes a day but I don't know if that is to maintain weight. anyone have any insight on this??

Weight loss is about eating less energy than you expend, so it MFP is set up for weight loss and your inputs are reasonable then eating to your calorie target.

Doing some form of phys will help with that, cardiovascular work will help your heart and burn up calories, resistance work will help you retain lean mass as you lose weight.

In both cases you should eat back the calories that you expend, the big benefit of CV work is that it gives you a lot of flexibility around what you want to eat.

The minimum amount of exercise you need if your only goal is to lose weight is: zero. You can lose weight as long as your energy intake is less than your energy expenditure.

Exercise helps, for a couple of reasons: (1) it increases energy expenditure, meaning you can eat more while maintaining a calorie deficit. I exercise about 500 calories a day, and I find a 1900 calorie diet more satisfying, and thus easier to maintain, than a 1400 calorie diet.

But (2) exercise improves your endurance and strength, which helps preserve lean body weight (mostly muscle) as you lose fat. If you don't exercise, some of the weight you lose will be muscle. Even if you do exercise, you'll probably lose some muscle, but a lot less. Some basic strength exercises are a good idea.

There are a few useful sayings that you'll see here and on other fitness websites that encapsulate those ideas:

You get fit in the gym, but you lose weight in the kitchen.
You can't outrun a bad diet.
You diet to look good in clothes, and you exercise to look good naked.

So I should be eating some of my exercise calories back? is that ok or will that ruin all the exercise I just did? also I know that I have to cut down on what I eat but are there foods that I shouldn't eat at all??

MFP calculates your calorie goal without taking exercise into account. So let's say you tell MPF your age, height, weight, gender, activity level without exercise, and weight loss goal, and it says, "OK, eat 1400 calories a day to attain that goal."

Then you exercise and burn 400 more calories.

MFP's response is: Hey, you said you want to lose X, but you did some exercise. Better eat back those 400 calories, or you'll lose faster than you want. (Losing weight really fast isn't a good idea unless you're morbidly obese.)

As long as you're fairly confident that the calorie burn estimates you're using are accurate, eat back those calories. Your body needs them for fuel and repair.

As for foods to avoid: you should cut foods out of your diet only if you never plan to eat them again, for the rest of your life. Otherwise, everything in moderation: cut back on quantity and frequency. Instead of having half a pint of ice cream every night for dessert (for example), have a scoop once or twice a week. As long as your diet is reasonably varied and balanced, you should be able to eat anything as long as you make sure the calories fit your goal. For some things, like cheese and fatty meats, that might mean eating relatively little. But again, don't cut out anything entirely unless it's a long-term decision. Otherwise, you risk giving in to cravings and then feeling like you've fallen off the wagon.