How much cardio can I do? (Not a dupe, I swear)

jeffg

New member
I know this question gets asked about once every five minutes, but in THIS case, it's different. :icon_bs:

But what can I do. Anyway, here's the situation:

I've been switching between being in and out of shape for the last three years of my life or so, mainly going to the gym until something stopped me (moving,, getting sick, etc.) and then getting out of the habit. I used to do a good weightlifting/cardio mix, which always seemed to be fairly effective, if slow.

I was in one of my off phases when I picked up fencing, which, say what you like, actually turned out to be really good exercise (I think it's something like intervals -- lots of doing nothing followed by insanely intense two-to-five minute bouts followed by nothing again). To my surprise, I started caring about being healthy, which meant cleaning up my eating and so on.

Anyway, I've been looking for more sports, and now I would sort of like to do boxing. There's a club at my uni, and they meet for two hours a day, Monday through Friday. So, here's my dilemma: I've done my reading, and I know that two hours of cardio per day is well over twice as much as I should be doing. Granted it's not going to be all out the whole time, but I'm fairly certain there will be at least 90 minutes of solid activity in there. To compound matters, I have fencing Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays about four hours later.

So, my question is this: first, is it OK to do the boxing, or is it going to short-circuit my weight loss? Second, if it is, is there any conceivable universe in which fencing would also be OK on the same days? Practices there run from an hour to two hours, by the way. I feel like this question is slightly different from the one normally asked, because I want to do the cardio for the love of the activity, not to accelerate the weight loss, which I think might be different.

Additional information/question:

So, these days I tend to eat a lot of salads. The past few days my diet has been mostly one turkey, avocado, and mozzarella sub (mm... healthy) and one chicken caesar salad per day (I split the sub into two meals) along with assorted snacks. Although obviously you can't really tell without seeing the sub itself, is this kind of thing too little? I used to eat all this precisely measurable protein powder and precise measurements of cereal and so on but at school that's sort of hard and frankly it sucks anyway.

Thanks for reading through all of this!
 
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> two hours of cardio per day is well over twice as much as I should be doing.

Who said that one should only exercise 1 hour per day? For me, I may exercise 4 hours in a day and other days, I may exercise 0 hours. Each day is different. But on average, I exercise 3 hours per day and my body does great. For me, one exercises to their avaible time and to the maximum time they enjoy. When "daily exercise" is no longer fun, one stops exercising. Or, they switch to different sports.

As a suggestion, exercise as long as you want (or have available time for). The body is "made to move". Thus, give it the daily opportunity to move.... And don't count the hours behind each day. Simply enjoy the moments. Especially "fun" sports.

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For eating, may I suggest a "balanced" diet. If you visit your nations food guide, I'm sure you'll find a good "food bundle" foundation to build on. Like anything in life (especially food intake), "proper balance" (sometimes called "pyramids") is the long term secret. re:

For me, I like following Idaho Plate method diet. Theire food intake bundle program (with high carb food item exclusions) is a good balance for my unique body. re:

Some folks like South Beach Diet as well. re:

Use which ever "food bundle" program works best for you (and your unique body).


Hope this helps....

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If you are afraid of losing weight too quickly just adjust your diet. Consume more complex carbs for energy and calories to burn.
 
Thanks guys =) That's really reassuring.

So, all this stuff about more than an hour of cardio burning off all of your muscle isn't true?
 
Thanks guys =) That's really reassuring. So, all this stuff about more than an hour of cardio burning off all of your muscle isn't true?

I suppose if one exercises too much and drain all "extra fat" from their body, the body starts feeding off its muscles next. From a white board perspective, this is probably true.

In real life, one exercises to one's available time or when their body has enough (re: pain or tingling feeling). Which ever comes first. During the years, I've yet to see people (even professional athletes) "burn their existing muscles" off their body. Fat (especially extra fat on the body) is always burned off the body first.

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