How much is enough?

However much you want and are capable of handling.

It's kind of a vague question, and one that varies from person to person depending on the purpose of exercise and his or her level of fitness (amongst other things).

If you're looking to lose (or gain, for that matter) weight, pay more attention to what you're eating than how much you're exercising. Both are important in reaching your goals, but you can't really out-train a bad diet.

 

You have to take it easy and slow. If you go too hard too fast you will just burn out.

Moreover, if you go too hard, your body won't recover fast enough and you won't improve like you'd like to. This is especially important for building muscle. Make sure to read up a bunch on exercising before you do it. Just goofing around and going for a run or playing some football is one thing, but if you have an actual goal in mind, you need to make sure your path towards them works.

 

Don't let your friends tell you what your goals should be. That's for you to decide. However, too low a weight can be unhealthy so keep that in mind when you're setting goals.

Building muscle will raise your metabolism, so they go hand in hand in that sense if that's what you mean.

It's typically easier to work towards goals more sequentially. By that I mean, you'd say "I want to lose x lbs. After I achieve that I can re-assess my goals and decide if I want to lose more, or if concentrating on building muscle is more appropriate."

Being a beginner you'll probably find you can accomplish both for a short time, however, trying to lose weight while simultaneously building muscle increases the risk of accomplishing neither and burning out.

A good way to get into more regular exercise is to find something you enjoy doing (ie, bike riding, racquetball, anything), and resolving to do it for some certain amount of time a couple times a week. Exercise should be fun!

The key is not making too many changes at once, or else you don't know what works and what doesn't.

 

"Too much" is such relative term.

My wife runs marathons. Well, she used to. Now she runs ultramarathons. She is training for the Vermont 100 miler this Summer. She runs about 70 miles each week. She needs to increase her mileage for the next two weeks.

As long as you are still sleeping well, and you can maintain all other aspects of "wellness," you have not hit the "too much" threshold. Google "overtraining" for symptoms.

 

Do not rate yourself based on the BMI or some kind of height/weight chart. Both of them are a big load of crap. Neither of them take into account bone structure/body composition.

If you want to gain weight and muscle, then running/jogging/bike-riding are not going to do anything for you. Spend a few days a week lifting moderate weights with very strict form and focus on muscle contraction and really "feeling" it. Also, begin eating more food.

 

I'm staking my life on this routine so I think I have a low limit on exercise for you. I do 10 minutes on a treadmill at 4MPH daily. I almost never miss. Occasionally, I'd do 4 pull-ups and some jumping jacks to relax the muscles. My goal is to do the minimum to avert heart diseases and feel good while doing it. I'm doing the minimum because I like to take the lazy way out.

 

I have to say that I'm not walking fast at 4MPH. I jog.