How much should I exercise to lose weight

You don't have to exercise at all to lose weight, you simply need a calorie deficit. It's true that some people use exercise to help create a calorie deficit, but you could lose weight simply laying in bed all day, every day as long as you were in a deficit.

There are lots of good reasons to exercise, but we don't NEED it to lose weight.

The 30 minutes you read about are just for heart health. It has nothing to do with losing weight. It could simply be a 30 minute walk, just elevate your heart a little. If need be it can be broken into 2 - 15 minutes or even 3 - 10 minutes. Seeing that you are doing a HIIT workout, just walk on your off days -- active recovery.

Nope, weight loss is all about eating a bit less than your body needs. You could theoretically also create a calorie deficit by means of sport, but sport calorie burns are very often very inflated and in reality a lot lower than you think. If you have enough to lose then creating a 500 calorie deficit simply by eating less is easy, but by means of working out? Every single day? I know I could not do that as it would be extremely hard on my body. You'd certainly not manage with 30 minutes of dancing every day.

The only thing the exercise (or increased daily activity for that matter, perhaps hard to do right now) is going to specifically do is allow you to eat more than if no workouts, and that may keep you more motivated to stay in a diet.

Would you rather eat say 1500 and burn 2000 being sedentary?
Or eat 2000 and burn 2500 being non-sedentary in some manner?

So exercise at some level that lets you eat at some level you can sustain and adhere to - some have a worse time of that than others.

Some people have found an eating level they really need to try to maintain - shoot they'll even take less deficit on non-active days to still eat at that level and be will to lose a tad slower.
That's fine if it fits your desires.

Veejohnson1990 wrote: »

Hi all,
Just started my weight loss journey again, I am currently exercise 3 days a week doing high intensity aerobic dance exercises, and well I'm loving it!!
Every article I have read says you need to exercise 30 mins a day 7 days a week and it's kind of daunting 😩
Just wondering if people have had success with the amount I am exercising? I will increase when I feel I can, don't want to hurt or over do myself, but yeah just looking for some first hand experience 🙂

Huh? Most things I read (from health authorities) seem to say that for general basic fitness we should do 150 minutes of moderate cardiovascular exercise a week, or half that of intense exercise, or a mix. If your dance classes are half an hour, and intense, for a total of 90 minutes a week, you may already be past there. (In addition, the general guidelines I've read for basic fitness/health say to strength train 2 days a week.)

Spreading the exercise across the week is good, so usually the base recommendation is for something like 5 days x 30 minutes of moderate exercise to get to 150, but your 3 days of more intense exercise should be fine.

If you want to burn a few more calories in order to eat a bit more, or want to work a bit more on your fitness, it might be logical to add something very moderate (casual walk or bike, maybe yoga or something like that) on non-dance days.

There is no need - in fact it can be counterproductive - to do intense exercise to the point of immediate or cumululative exhaustion. Any body movement burns extra calories, vs. being still. Sometimes the diet/fitness blogosphere makes it seem like we need to do something miserable and exhausting to lose weight, as if being fat were a sin we need to expiate through suffering! That's a complete myth.

I agree with others: Weight loss is all about calorie balance. If you're using the MFP method (logging exercise and eating it back), exercising more just means eating more to fuel adequately. Calorie balance determines weight loss, exercise is for fitness and fun. Sounds like you're doing fine. (Well, maybe add a little strength training? ).

You can lose weight with zero exercise, just by managing calories eaten.

Realistically, sometimes I exercise, sometimes I don't. Now in year 4+ of maintaining a healthy weight (after decades of obesity), but working on losing a few vanity pounds ultra slowly, I'm pretty clear about how I need to eat for either activity routine, so that my weight does what I want/expect either way. I'm down about a pound a month since the start of the year, which is pretty much where I want to be.

So, sure, in my experience weight loss can happen with any amount of exercise, from none to lots.

I’m vegan and had the same issue so made 100 cal Nutrient rich protein balls for the days I was under eating and not hungry. Just pop one and you’re good to go, but do try to up your calories naturally. Maybe some oats or dried fruit or nuts or coconut yoghurt. Loads of high calorie low fibre vegan foods out there so you won’t get the full feeling.

Leezy55 wrote: »

I'm 65, 5'2.5" and weigh 165. If I don't exercise how many calories should I eat daily to lose 40-50 lbs? I have always been on the thin side. Started gaining weight the closer I got to 60. Yes I started eating more and moving less. I do not have any health problems.

1256.75

Ya, not that exact, and as mentioned you are lacking much room for much deficit.

Call it 1250 - but that is based on you getting up and moving around daily so as not to be sedentary but instead Lightly-Active, to give room for 500 cal deficit.

That'll be 1 lb weekly in theory. Your accuracy in logging and what your body is really doing will show the true deficit.

Lightly-Active means at least a good solid 1 hr a day moving around at decent pace beyond the basic stuff and sitting like a frog on a log.
Take the long way around the house, long way to get the mail, visit the end of your driveway several times, walk a dog (ask before taking the neighbors), forget why you visited a room and go back several times (especially if upstairs).

1250 will allow room to drop as weight drops too.

Veejohnson1990 wrote: »

Thanks all, I've been sticking to a 1500 calorie intake daily, even on my exercise days.
I'm vegan and I can find it hard to get much more than 1500 calories in a day, most of the time I'm at about 1100 calories a day! This isn't intentional it's just how my days work out food wise sometimes, but I'm glad that the exercise I'm currently doing will still yeild results ☺️
Thank you all for the great advice and insight!

As vegans, we absolutely have access to calorie-dense foods (and I think it's counter-productive when we say we don't, as it may be off-putting to people who want to gain weight or simply be able to maintain a healthy body weight and are also interested in veganism).

Some of my favorites: nut/nut butters, coconut/coconut milk, dark chocolate, potatoes, pasta, vegan mayo, avocado/guacamole, full fat salad dressings, hummus and/or tahini, vegan baked goods (banana bread, muffins, etc), pancakes/waffles, and smoothies/fruit juices. If you're meeting all your nutritional needs (which is unlikely on 1,110 a day, by the way), then you can also enjoy ones of the dozens and dozens of vegan beers or wines available to add more calories to your day.

I'm a vegan runner and some days I have as many as 3,000 calories without much of a challenge. I know of other vegan athletes or bodybuilders who eat a lot more than me. Scott Jurkek, the vegan ultrarunner, I think was eating 3,000-5,000 every day for a few months in a row when he was doing his full AT run. There are vegan powerlifters posting their meals on social media who are eating a mind-boggling number of calories (mind-boggling to me, normal for powerlifters). We are absolutely as capable as non-vegans are when it comes to eating to sustain our activity levels.