When I started this blog a huge portion of it was dedicated to workouts and training for races. At that time in my life, and for a couple years following, working out was probably the focus of my life. I was desperate to lose weight, which to me meant working out 1-2 hours a day, 6-7 days a week. Any day that I missed, I felt guilty. I constantly felt like I wasn’t good enough, which only made me push harder. I avoided social outings and isolated myself because I didn’t want anything to get in the way of my goals.
These feelings, of course, didn’t come across in the blog because this was my space to be happy and upbeat. This was also my space to be “perfect” and compare myself to all the other bloggers out there, also working themselves to the bone.
I slowly began to recognize that I was over-exercising and under-eating, although I didn’t want to admit it to myself because I started gaining weight back and if I admitted I was over-exercising then I would need to stop. I couldn’t stop – I had to loose this weight I’d gained! Little did I know, the stress that I was putting on my body was actually making me gain weight. I’d raised my level of cortisol so high that my body was fighting back.
Even over the past year, after changing my attitude and habits immensely, I still hadn’t taken a real break from exercising. I’ve focused so much on eating better, but I haven’t really thought about stepping back from working out as well. However, over the past month or so I’ve stopped running (replaced with walking), I’ve lessened up my strength workouts, and finally, this past week, I’ve barely worked out at all.
Normally, this would have me in such a fit of anxiety I probably would have called in sick to work because I felt so overwhelmed. But now? I know it’s what I need. I’m not stepping back from exercising because my brain says to, I’m doing it because it’s what my body says to do. Maybe tomorrow I’ll really feel like a good strength workout. Maybe next week I’ll be ready to start running again. But today I’m exercising intuitively and taking a break. My stress levels have never been so low, and I’ve never been quite this happy, so I’m taking it all in and enjoying this and hopefully my body will enjoy it too, and will be ready to bring back some of my favorite workouts (and endorphin highs!) soon.
But right now – I’m relishing in my stress-free (and self-hate free) environment.
Do you exercise intuitively?
Have you ever taken a week or so off of formal workouts?
What’s your favorite way to exercise?