Exercise bordering addiction

KelBlundell

Hello, UK based female, 39, was 220lbs, now 193lbs. Target 165lbs.

I think I have a tad of an exercise addiction. I've been doing 1-2 hours cardio a day for several months, occasionally taking a rest day (usually one a week).

I've recently had a heart scare which turned out to be a sprained shoulder/trap/neck muscle. But it has enforced a week's rest on me.

It has also made me review what I was doing and so I'm looking for advice to moderate myself a bit!

Previous routine:

Mon 30min pilates, 90min kickboxing
Tues 30min pilates 60min bike ride
Weds 30min pilates 90min kickboxing
Thurs 30min pilates 60min bike ride
Friday 30min pilates 30min weights
Sat 90min bike ride 30min pilates
Sun 60min bike ride 30min weights

How can I tone it down a bit without losing form/slowing weightloss?

My resting hr is 57, exercising I go around 170 which is way too high. My net calories were averaging 800 but I'm pushing my food intake up to 1500 now and trying to add some carbs.

All advice welcome!

thisvickyruns

why is 170 too high for your HR? do you have heart problems? If so this is a question for your doctor, not internet randoms.

I don't really see a great deal wrong with your workout routine, other than making one day an actual rest day, if you enjoy it and you start to fuel your activity properly. While you are eating so little you definitely need to cut it back to 3-4 times a week before you do any lasting damage.

sijomial

Not seeing the problem with your exercise volume unless you are finding it fatiguing, onerous or unpleasant.
But netting 800cals is a huge problem, sounds far more like a food/dieting technique problem to me.

But that volume of exercise does require proper fuelling to avoid your exercise creating an excessive deficit which is both harmful in itself and also negates the real benefits of exercise - you won't improve, progress or recover properly without eating appropriately. To me your problem was undereating and it's not apparent you are over-exercising. The MyFitnessPal method of eating back exercise calories works very well for people doing a large but varied volume of exercise.

Don't understand why you think hitting a HR of 170 is problematic - can you explain please?

KelBlundell

Thank you and yes I think fuelling is an issue for me.

My max HR is 181 and you shouldn't exceed 80% of that as I understand- which is 144 hence I think I'm pushing myself too hard.

I've had a few pre syncope incidents which could be inadequate fuelling or pushing HR too high.

sijomial

KelBlundell wrote: »

Thank you and yes I think fuelling is an issue for me.

My max HR is 181 and you shouldn't exceed 80% of that as I understand- which is 144 hence I think I'm pushing myself too hard.

I've had a few pre syncope incidents which could be inadequate fuelling or pushing HR too high.

That would only be your maximum HR if that was a tested number. Pushing yourself to your absolute maximum/point of collapse.

That number is just a very generic 220 - your age which is just the broadest of guidleines more suited to a hospital environment than fitness/exercise.

And there's no reason (for a heart healthy person) to set an 80% limit to either a tested max HR or a guestimated one. No idea where you got that idea from. Your intensity as reflected by your HR is determined by your training goals not some random percentage.

You know you aren't eating properly to fuel your exercise, train like an athlete requires eating ike an athlete.

SaffaInUK

If you're feeling fatigued, yes, diet may be the issue. Perhaps increase fat intake. Regarding heart rate, unless racing or time trials, I've always tried to keep my heart rate within the bands for what I'm training for - different bands for different purposes as I'm sure you're aware. If you're concerned about addiction, one of my neighbours has a blog and has done a lot of research on this https://the-hungry-girl.com/

cmriverside

KelBlundell wrote: »

Thank you and yes I think fuelling is an issue for me.

My max HR is 181 and you shouldn't exceed 80% of that as I understand- which is 144 hence I think I'm pushing myself too hard.

I've had a few pre syncope incidents which could be inadequate fuelling or pushing HR too high.

You're seriously under-eating.

I don't see your heartrate or exercise routine to be too high or too much, but you MUST start eating. No wonder you suffer from syncope.


I think you should be eating a LOT more. How much depends on your regular routine plus exercise calories. I lost most of my weight on 1500-1600 plus exercise calories, so on most days I was eating 2000+ calories to get to 1500 net.

Eat!

thisvickyruns

SaffaInUK wrote: »

If you're feeling fatigued, yes, diet may be the issue.

OP says she's eating NET 800 cals, there's no 'may be the issue' about it! It 100% is the issue.

FitAgainBy55

sijomial wrote: »

And there's no reason (for a heart healthy person) to set an 80% limit to either a tested max HR or a guestimated one. No idea where you got that idea from. Your intensity as reflected by your HR is determined by your training goals not some random percentage.

Agreed. When I regularly participated in endurance races I would average 95% of my "estimated" max HR for a half marathon which at the time was around 1.5 hours for me. 80% would have been a put me FAR below my capability as a goal.

Speakeasy76

I think the fact that you have a shoulder/trap muscle sprain is the first sign you could be either overdoing it, not allowing enough recovery time or need some form-tweaking of certain exercises. I know Pilates is low-impact, but I still don't know if you should be doing it every day--that could be where your shoulder/trap strain came from. As others have said, it may be more of a diet issue, but if you also find yourself not sleeping well, then you may also be over-exercising. If the time you spend exercising is taking away from other activities you either "need" to do or are fun for you, then you could be overdoing it.

800 calories is not enough long-term for a lightly active person, and certainly not for a person who is active. I'm glad you are upping your calorie intake. Remember, you need both rest and fuel to be able to recover from workouts, and sounds like you were definitely not getting enough before. I will be honest because I've been there before myself, but it sounds like you are starting to head down the slippery slope of disordered eating/thinking about food and exercise, and using exercise just to lose weight or to make up for food you've eaten. If you legitimately enjoy all the exercise you do and don't view it as something you NEED to do to lose weight, then you have a healthy attitude about it. If you find yourself panicking if you can't get in enough exercise, then it may be time to reevaluate which activities you actually enjoy and trying to include more of those.

Another thing I would advise would be to look for ways to just be more active throughout your day through regular or less strenuous activities. Getting outside and going for a walk is great for the body and the mind in so many ways. It's not always about the calorie burn or how aesthetically "fit" you'll get by doing certain exercises.

yirara

You're severely undereating and need to eat more! Seriously, you're damaging your body with what you're doing. Your heartrate has nothing to do with that. About 40% of all people have a maximum heartrate that deviates a lot from this terrible 220-age equation. Syncope generally has nothing to do with a high heartrate, but with undereating, exercising too much, and drinking too little. Pick yours.

LisaGetsMoving

Eat more, rest more. That is not usually the advice for weight loss, but in this case...

NorthCascades

The amount of exercise doesn't seem excessive to me. It isn't what I would choose, because my motivations are different. If you're not enjoying it, it's crowding out other things you want to do with your time, or anything like that, then it's too much.

As others have said, your calorie deficit is a problem.

SnifterPug

The others have said pretty much what I was going to. Personally I would not be doing pilates so often, I'd increase the weight sessions and I'm not sure how you can do 90mins of kickboxing without collapsing! I do boxing training and the traditional 12 3 minute rounds of pad work, shadow boxing or heavy bag work with a 1 minute break is quite enough for me to cope with. I can't see any problem with taking your heart rate high unless you have medical advice not to.

AnnPT77

KelBlundell wrote: »

Thank you and yes I think fuelling is an issue for me.

My max HR is 181 and you shouldn't exceed 80% of that as I understand- which is 144 hence I think I'm pushing myself too hard.

I've had a few pre syncope incidents which could be inadequate fuelling or pushing HR too high.

Talk with your doctor for authoritative guidance, but I'll add my advice to others for consideration.

Age estimated maximum heart rates are inaccurate for a large number of people. Look at an RPE (rate of perceived exertion) scale**. If your heart rate is at what ought to be a high-ish percent (like when it's 170), and your RPE is not relatively high on the RPE scale, it's very probable that you have a HRmax that is above what those estimates suggest. It's pretty common.

I would *not* recommend it to an exercise beginner, nor to someone who hasn't been cleared by their doctor for intense exercise, but going near 100% of actual (not estimated) HRmax isn't necessarily dangerous to a well-conditioned (fit) person. No one can stay there for long, though, if the high HR resulted from exercise. Body just *won't* keep going that hard, after a fairly short time.

My age estimated HRmax by 220-age is 155. When doing more intense workouts, I exceed 155bpm fairly frequently. My tested HRmax is around 181. When I was actually training (i.e., trying to improve for competitive reasons), I did some workouts that took me to 180-181. In an actual race, I wanted to be close to that by the end of the race. It was very difficult, very fatiguing, but nothing else bad happened. The 155bpm level for me, in reality, is only around 80% of heart rate reserve, 85% HRmax. NBD. If I never exceeded 144, I wouldn't make much fitness progress; it's only in the lower end of the "aerobic zone" for me. I hit or exceed 144 in multiple workouts every week.

Now, don't just willy-nilly throw caution to the winds without input from your doctor. But, as others have said, eat more. You're doing yourself and your health a disservice.

** I don't love this article in other respects, but it has an RPE scale with some physiological benchmarks beyond just "feels hard". It should be close enough to give you a reasonable idea of whether you're feeling at a high RPE, when at the number you think is 80% HR max, or at the 170 you're concerned about.

https://www.verywellfit.com/perceived-exertion-scale-1231117

KelBlundell

Thank you all so much for taking the time to comment. There is clearly a consensus, and my friends agree too I'm not eating enough.

In UK we are stuck in lockdown so exercise is about all I can do outside the house.

I'm moderating down a little with the cardio, and increasing my food but tbh it is tough. More peanut butter helps!

NorthCascades

I want to say about the high heart rate. This assumes you don't have an underlying condition, and it doesn't apply if you do.

Exercise is stressful. Over millions of years our blueprint has figured out how to cope with that stress because it's a sink or swim world. Don't read to much into this next part, but exercise is damaging. That's the point. 🙂

We cope with it (1) by having really good feedback mechanisms that prevent us from doing too much damage, and (2) by repairing that damage and making things better than before. It's like your body says "well, she keeps doing this to me, so I better get good at it."

Most healthy people, before their heart explodes, will get really exhausted and not be able to continue.

I'm not saying you should be reckless, not pay attention, or ignore anything you think is a problem. But it sounds like you've been working your heart and lungs, you aren't getting up off the couch for the first time trying to sprint a marathon. So you're a lot less likely to fall over clutching your chest.

serapel

You must be really proud of yourself for losing so much weight. You’ve gotten sone great advice here already 👍

Remember that if you go too hard or too quick, it won’t be sustainable weight loss. Women require a minimum of 1200 calories in order to menstruate and be healthy.

I’m almost 50 and I lose weight eating 1700 calories a day.

Be kind to yourself xxx

thisvickyruns

KelBlundell wrote: »

Thank you all so much for taking the time to comment. There is clearly a consensus, and my friends agree too I'm not eating enough.

In UK we are stuck in lockdown so exercise is about all I can do outside the house.

I'm moderating down a little with the cardio, and increasing my food but tbh it is tough. More peanut butter helps!

what is it you find tough about eating more?

Peanut butter is great, i'm always an advocate of eating more PB if you need extra cals!

I ran 10 miles this morning so todays food includes a banana with peanut butter as a post run snack and pizza for my tea... because it very easily fits in my calories (and macros) with a big exercise calorie boost. Don't think you cant eat pizza or ice cream or whatever else you like just because you're trying to lose weight. who wants to refuel 1000 cals on chicken and broccoli!?