is there such thing as too much exercise?

absolutely. overuse injuries are common. if you've never got one you either have impeccable form, superior genes, or your not working out as hard as you think you are.

cwolfman13 wrote: »

rachylouise87 wrote: »

my friend at work said i'm not losing as much because i exercise too much? i do cardio 5 times a week for 30-50 minutes and strength 3-4 times a week... i burn around 400 calories a time and my daily deficit is 520 just on food. to be honest i have cut out alcohol completely this week and upped the intensity of my workouts. i sometimes eat back 50% of my workout calories sometimes dont. the point is my friend thinks im starving myself but i'm 5ft 1 with a TDEE of 1745 and i have a desk job so i dont think i am starving myself of calories or overdoing it?

I ride between 60 - 80 miles per week (more when I'm actively training) and lift 3x weekly. Yes, there is such a thing as too much exercise and over-training...but I doubt that's happening with 30-50 minutes of general cardio 4-5 days per week and some resistance training a few days per week unless you're just crashing your diet or something.

Really, that's where the risk is...not eating enough to support the level of activity...thus you run into recovery issues and over-train injuries and other issues

I agree. From what you posted, I don't think you are over exercising and I'd probably know because several years ago I went WAY over board with cardio. Thankfully I re-evaluated and made drastic changes before I got any overuse injuries. If you are eating enough, feel energetic enough throughout your workouts, then don't bother what other people think of what you're doing. Just make sure to change things up every now and then so that you don't get overuse injuries or boredom sets in.

Not over-exercising, that's a great activity level!
I do think you may be under-eating, though.
If your calorie goal is 1200 it's probably too low. That's the only thing I disagree with MFP about. If you exercise you should be eating back all those calories to hit your 1200. If your total for the day is under 1200 because of the negative exercise calories then you are probably not getting enough calories and weight loss/ muscle building will stall. Try bumping up to 1300 net calories a day and eat back all your exercise calories so you are at a total of 1300 each day. That's still enough of a deficit from your TDEE to see weight loss, but will help you come off of the plateau.