How long should I exercise a day?

Soundbodysoundmind
Soundbodysoundmind Posts: 45 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I want to lose 30 lbs, a am 5'4 and weigh 163 and eating 1700 calories a day (should I eat more or less calories a day??).
MFP says I should burn 180 calories a day and exercise for 30 minutes and I am also doing cardio 3 times a week and strength 3 days a week (one rest/stretch day). Is that enough?? I feel like it's not...but I don't want to over do it and have too much of a deficit.
Thank you, any help would be great! (:

Replies

  • FitnessBellaBarbie
    FitnessBellaBarbie Posts: 46
    How long have you been doing this?
    Keep it up and see where you are in a few weeks if its not working then try to maybe ad more to your workouts.
  • RaggedyPond
    RaggedyPond Posts: 1,487 Member
    I want to lose 30 lbs, a am 5'4 and weigh 163 and eating 1700 calories a day (should I eat more or less calories a day??).
    MFP says I should burn 180 calories a day and exercise for 30 minutes and I am also doing cardio 3 times a week and strength 3 days a week (one rest/stretch day). Is that enough?? I feel like it's not...but I don't want to over do it and have too much of a deficit.
    Thank you, any help would be great! (:

    Sounds like a good start.
  • Soundbodysoundmind
    Soundbodysoundmind Posts: 45 Member
    Okay thank you!(:
  • hearthwood
    hearthwood Posts: 794 Member
    What does MFP recommend that you should consume in calories a day? Also I am unaware that MFP recommends how many calories one should be burning in a day?

    Can you clarify?
  • kdeaux1959
    kdeaux1959 Posts: 2,675 Member
    3 times per week for 30 minutes per day is adequate BUT if you want to work out more, you will not necessarily hurt your progress to do so. If you go more than 30 minutes per day, I would suggest that the 30 minutes be cardio and the remainder be strength training. Do enough to get results but not so much as to burn yourself out with it. Best wishes.
  • Soundbodysoundmind
    Soundbodysoundmind Posts: 45 Member
    What does MFP recommend that you should consume in calories a day? Also I am unaware that MFP recommends how many calories one should be burning in a day?

    Can you clarify?

    It suggests 1600 if I'm active but I am trying to workout 6 days a week and my BMR says if I work out that much I need at least 1410 to survive, so that doesn't work. So I bumped it up to 1800 as an average between all the BMR/TDEE sites I tried which used my age, gender, measurements, weight, height, and body fat percentage so that way it was pretty accurate
    If you go on the website, not the app, and you go to the exercise tab it will ask you to in put the calories burned and exercise. Then it tells you how much you should burn a day and put of the week.
    Mine would say
    Daily total/goal: 180/180 (that's how much I burned today)
    Weekly total/goal : 180/ 1080
    Bug I guess most people put 1 calorie so they aren't tempted to eat back the calories burned
  • MelodyandBarbells
    MelodyandBarbells Posts: 7,724 Member
    You may be mixing up MFP and TDEE methods. TDEE you state how much you exercise and it gives you a daily calorie intake. That amount is unvaried from day to day (or averaged over the week if you prefer). You do not eat back exercise calories. This method is excellent if you prefer to eat the same amount of calories everyday and not worry about how many calories were burned for each exercise. Do for a few weeks (like 4-8), increase or lower daily calories depending on results

    MFP standard: state your non-exercise activity level - sedentary if you sit on your bum all day, very active if you're a bike messenger for a living - and how much you want to lose per week. Daily cals given already factors in a deficit without exercise. "Earn" and eat even more calories if you choose to exercise, though MFP estimates can be high and many people end up getting gadgets like HRM to measure better or eating back just a portion of what MFP suggests.

    Depending on which method you are doing you can exercise to your hearts content and either eat more or otherwise account for it

Categories