Do you get down on yourself when you skip a workout, even if it's for a good reason?

bigdogintheyard

I'm not doing my scheduled weight lifting routine today. My reasons: I worked a lot outside yesterday on our gates to keep a new dog in the yard and got like 3 hours sleep before work. Today I caught up on sleep and then tweaked my knee getting out of bed. Part of me feels like I'm being lazy and I don't want to make a habit of skipping workouts. The other part of me says I'm being reasonable and that if I'm miserable I'll just throw in the towel all together.

Any tips on the mental aspect here or how you judge if you really need a day off?

JeromeBarry1

No. Sometimes I'm feeling lazy. That's less often as more weight has come off and exercise gets a little easier. I've found that I usually log enough burn on weekend chores to make up for 2 skipped days anyway. I was motivated to do this by learning that my blood work was much worse than usual. A 3-month exam showed that my blood work has made much progress. That's more motivation to keep going. I sleep late, exercise, eat, go to work late. Stay late. They don't mind.

RoseTheWarrior

Weight loss is about eating less calories than you burn. Working out simply increases your fitness level. Therefore there's no reason at all to have feelings of guilt for not working out! Cut yourself some slack. A good rule of thumb is to think how you'd respond if your best friend were telling you what you just told us. Treat yourself like you would that best friend.

djspacecaptain

I think it really depends on your goals and how much as well as how fast you want to achieve them. For me there has only been a couple days in my 7 month journey where i just felt lazy and skipped working out. I have had a few days that i needed to rest and recover which will happen if you workout hard. I still feel lazy on those days but the body does need to heal so i dont get down on myself. Even when i had a lazy day i still didnt get down on myself they happen, just workout that much harder your next workout!

positivepowers

Your body and mind need rest as well as exercise.

EvgeniZyntx

Nope, I keep a hard travel schedule and workouts some times slip or get dropped. That's fine, hold your goals too tightly is counter productive. You then beat yourself up, get negative about the whole thing and drop EVERYTHING.

If I need to drop one workout, I look to see if reschedule it makes sense. Is this a rest day, can I move my work out to my next rest day? If not, it doesn't matter when my view is 3-6 months from now.

More important than any single workout is mental and physical health, don't get injured and stay mentally balanced about it. Tweeked knee? What happens to your workouts if you then injure it for the long term?

After all, unless you are a pro athlete - your goals are to gradually improve yourself. And one lost workout doesn't change that. Personally, I plan 5-7 different activities during the week, some physically pushing myself, some are a LOT lighter, any single one might get dropped EVERY week. It doesn't matter - I'm still hitting 3-5 workouts there.

Edit:cleaned up an auto-carrot

bigdogintheyard

Thank you all for the encouragement and advice. People on MFP always talk about all the support and encouragent they get from the community here. I didn't really get it before. I get it now.