Is it important to have rest days?

anishadalal

i tend to go hardcore when I want to lose weight. This is probably because i am quite impatient and want to see results sooner rather than later. I set my mind and started going for 1 hour a day everyday it has been around 3 weeks now... i combined cardio with a lot of weight training.

I began feeling quite lethargic, moody and not myself. I kept going and my knees began to ache i put it down to one of the machines.. i spoke to someone and they said i should have rest days...


How important is this...


Does it effect your mood of u over exercise?

betuel75

I dont rest if my muscles are not fatigued, i can go weeks without a day off. The lethargic, moody and not yourself feeling can be from a number or things or a combo of things. I used to feel lethargic, moody and not myself. I started doing a process of elimination to figure out what it was. The culprit of the last two issues for me seem to have been either too low carb, two low fat or a combination of both. I now eat the right amount of carbs before my workout, eat a higher amount of carbs and fats each day as a total and the moody and not myself symptoms are pretty much gone. The lethargic one still comes up. The lethargic one is probably from a large and/or prolonged calorie deficit. Hope this helps.

Edit: Id say if your not sore and have the energy, keep exercising.

kuftae

When you train, you are tearing your muscle fibers, breaking down the muscle. Destroying them so that your body will notice the stress and build them back stronger and bigger. Thus gainz are made when you are resting, not when you are working out.

If you are just constantly tearing your muscle fibers and in destruction mode, there's no time to recover. Your exercise is now counterproductive.

At the very least, take a day off from weight training once or, preferably twice a week. Continuing with cardio is fine but the law of diminishing returns applies.

cwolfman13

I would encourage you to disassociate weight management and fitness...they are really separate things. Incessant exercise is not necessary to lose weight and can in fact be counterproductive to your efforts...particularly if yu're like most people and just crash your calories and then do a bunch of exercise on top of that...that's a lot of stress on the body and is going to raise your cortisol levels which in turn makes losing fat harder.

Your diet is going to be 99.9% responsible for your weight loss...not doing a bunch of exercise. If exercise was for weight loss then whey would people like me who are healthy and fit but not trying to lose weight be exercising? Exercise is for fitness...and when you start to look at things that way, you start to see the value in rest/recovery days...because rest/recovery is where your body repairs itself and that's where you make your fitness gains. If you're regularly performing moderate to strenuous training, rest days are just as an important part of the equation as the work.

evildeadedd

I think rest days are very important in the beginning. The better shape you are in the less rest you will need and vice versa. IMO over training is one of the biggest reasons people fail when trying to get healthy. It's natural to want to go hard and get results fast, but what good does going to the gym 7 days a week right off the bat and killing the yourself do if you burn out or get injured in a few months?

Francl27

I rest when my muscles are fatigued. Honestly that didn't happen until I started exercising pretty intensively for 1.5 hour pretty much every day. But now when it hurts just to go upstairs... it's a good sign that I need a break, lol.

Nicklebee93

I assume since you're looking to lose weight you're on a calories deficit? I would imagine that's why you're feeling fatigue. Most people can workout everyday, but they're eating at maintenance or even a little above. So you need to start listening to your body.

I workout 6 days a week. Sunday is my day off. But i've been feeling so hungry and tired lately i might need to give myself more of a break. Listen to your body.

LazSommer

I find running myself into the ground extremely effective.

sky_northern

anishadalal wrote: »

I began feeling quite lethargic, moody and not myself.

Have you been eating back some calories from your work outs? Too big of a calorie deficit means it's more likely you are losing lean tissue with the fat instead of just mostly fat. (Faster loss isn't necessarily better).

anishadalal wrote: »

I kept going and my knees began to ache i put it down to one of the machines.. i spoke to someone and they said i should have rest days...

I think the fact you feel achy is a good sign you might need a rest day.