Does Anyone Else Have This Issue?

That was me on Friday. Thursday evening I made the executive decision to have a rest day on Friday and while it felt great to sleep in I was mentally kicking myself for it.

Unless I am really exhausted and just can't get up I go to the gym and yes, I feel guilty about it because once I am in the groove and that mind set I really don't want to stop.

That was me Saturday. I took it as my body telling me something since I don't normally feel like that. I took the day off, felt guilty for a bit, felt much better Sunday.

You need at least one rest day for your muscles to recover. If your body doesn't have time then it can actually weaken you, so make one day off a priority. Maybe still do some cardio like walking but nothing too strenuous. You shouldn't feel guilty for it

Worse haha. I go to the gym 3x a week with a touch of cardio but mostly weight training, My dad came into my room yesterday and asked what time I was going to the gym (I usually go once on a weekend cause I run out of time in the week but had managed to get all 3 after work this week). I said I wasn't going and I felt so awful that I went!

I love the gym but I'm in recovery of an ED and I'm not meant to exercise TOO much while I get used to eating more. Guilt is a horrible thing to feel over things like this

I feel guilty if I take a rest day, even if I know I need it. I usually end up doing some form of exercise even if it's just a quick 20 min walk. I've been forced into resting this weekend and probably today thanks to a bad leg cramp I got on Sat morning, leg still hurts from it.
I just try to be extra good with my food if/when I take a day off and keep telling myself I need a rest sometimes. 1 or 2 days of no exercise isn't going to make the last 6+ months (or however long it is) of progress vanish overnight

yes, I feel like this sometimes. Most of the time I just exercise anyway and when I'm finished I feel better and glad I did it. The times I don't I'm usually not feeling well, so it's easy not to feel to guilty about it.

dial it back a bit. you don't need to do daily cardio unless you're training for something like a marathon or a sport.

I strongly disagree. Rest days are very important, even for people training for a marathon. Don't do cardio 7 days a week - you will get burned out. And if it is the same cardio exercise, you may even get overuse injuries. Scale your cardio back to 5 days per week. If you feel guilty about taking a rest day, do yoga or some incredibly low impact cardio - a lesurely bike ride or a nice walk.

lots of people struggle with doing too much and feeling like more=more progress.


dial it back a bit. you don't need to do daily cardio unless you're training for something like a marathon or a sport.

This. You're doing too much. Your central nervous system is flipping out on you. Imagine you live in a very hot climate, and you have your central A/C set to keep your home at 74 degrees. But it's so hot outside that the temp inside your home is never 74 degrees, so your A/C never shuts off. That's what you're doing to your CNS. And I haven't even touched on the possibility of overuse injuries.

Take some time off, eat and sleep a lot, and adjust your ideas about how much exercise is enough.

lots of people struggle with doing too much and feeling like more=more progress.


dial it back a bit. you don't need to do daily cardio unless you're training for something like a marathon or a sport.

This. You're doing too much. Your central nervous system is flipping out on you. Imagine you live in a very hot climate, and you have your central A/C set to keep your home at 74 degrees. But it's so hot outside that the temp inside your home is never 74 degrees, so your A/C never shuts off. That's what you're doing to your CNS. And I haven't even touched on the possibility of overuse injuries.

Take some time off, eat and sleep a lot, and adjust your ideas about how much exercise is enough.

What??

Sorry but I disagree with you. While I agree that one should listen to their body and take a rest day if they feel they need to it's not necessary. And the OP isn't doing "too much" exercise. She states that she does cardio 40-60 min. a day and lifts "some days". That's far from too much. She may want to cut down the cardio to 30 min a day and lift every day focusing on a different muscle group per day but I see no need to dial back what she is doing.

If a person likes to do daily cardio then let them do it. I do 30 min. of cardio every day before I lift and have no problems nor do I feel like I need to "dial it back" a bit. If I am tired then I take a rest day. If not then I go to the gym. There is no hard and fast rule on rest days.

dial it back a bit. you don't need to do daily cardio unless you're training for something like a marathon or a sport.

I strongly disagree. Rest days are very important, even for people training for a marathon. Don't do cardio 7 days a week - you will get burned out. And if it is the same cardio exercise, you may even get overuse injuries. Scale your cardio back to 5 days per week. If you feel guilty about taking a rest day, do yoga or some incredibly low impact cardio - a lesurely bike ride or a nice walk.

is this actualy true?

Just talking about the cardio - I would assume that our bodies are able to withstand daily walks, climbing stairs, lifting babies, cleaning, running errands - why is it a MUST to take a day off from the treadmill? I am not being snarky, I really am wondering about this.

I work out daily - I do 45-60 minutes of cardio (usually the elliptical) and weights on 3 days a week (not consecutive). I added swimming once a week.THere are days that i just don't get up (usually once or twice a month) but i don't "on purpose" skip a day.

lots of people struggle with doing too much and feeling like more=more progress.


dial it back a bit. you don't need to do daily cardio unless you're training for something like a marathon or a sport.

This. You're doing too much. Your central nervous system is flipping out on you. Imagine you live in a very hot climate, and you have your central A/C set to keep your home at 74 degrees. But it's so hot outside that the temp inside your home is never 74 degrees, so your A/C never shuts off. That's what you're doing to your CNS. And I haven't even touched on the possibility of overuse injuries.

Take some time off, eat and sleep a lot, and adjust your ideas about how much exercise is enough.

What??

Sorry but I disagree with you. While I agree that one should listen to their body and take a rest day if they feel they need to it's not necessary. And the OP isn't doing "too much" exercise. She states that she does cardio 40-60 min. a day and lifts "some days". That's far from too much. She may want to cut down the cardio to 30 min a day and lift every day focusing on a different muscle group per day but I see no need to dial back what she is doing.

If a person likes to do daily cardio then let them do it. I do 30 min. of cardio every day before I lift and have no problems nor do I feel like I need to "dial it back" a bit. If I am tired then I take a rest day. If not then I go to the gym. There is no hard and fast rule on rest days.

The fact that she feels like garbage and is agonizing over whether or not to take a rest day is a clear sign that she is doing too much and needs recovery. If you can't see that, you probably shouldn't be offering advice to people. I won't even bother with the fact that you're doing cardio BEFORE you lift.

The reason I do my cardio BEFORE I lift is simple: I will not do it after I lift.Doing cardio before I lift has never inhibited any progress that I have had muscle wise nor have I ever been too tired to lift heavy. I have been working out for over fifteen years. I think I know a little bit about my body and what works for me. Thank you for not bothering to lament on why you feel the way I do my workout is wrong. :flowerforyou:

As for my "advice" I was referring to what you posted about not needing to do cardio and some blather about air conditioning temperatures. Yes, the OP feels guilt but her question is how to get over that feeling. I am fairly certain there are a lot of people who agonize over taking a rest day when they feel like crap. I know I do.

dial it back a bit. you don't need to do daily cardio unless you're training for something like a marathon or a sport.

I strongly disagree. Rest days are very important, even for people training for a marathon. Don't do cardio 7 days a week - you will get burned out. And if it is the same cardio exercise, you may even get overuse injuries. Scale your cardio back to 5 days per week. If you feel guilty about taking a rest day, do yoga or some incredibly low impact cardio - a lesurely bike ride or a nice walk.

is this actualy true?



Just talking about the cardio - I would assume that our bodies are able to withstand daily walks, climbing stairs, lifting babies, cleaning, running errands - why is it a MUST to take a day off from the treadmill? I am not being snarky, I really am wondering about this.

I work out daily - I do 45-60 minutes of cardio (usually the elliptical) and weights on 3 days a week (not consecutive). I added swimming once a week.THere are days that i just don't get up (usually once or twice a month) but i don't "on purpose" skip a day.

I guess that it depends on how one defines a cardio workout. I do cardio 5 days a week, but it is hard cardio: tempo runs, long runs, spinning class. I am burning well over 500 calories an hour. My body needs a break. On my rest days I will still go for a walk or an easy bike ride. I don't count that as exercise (cardio). Now if someone was doing light-to-moderate impact cardio then maybe they can do cardio 7 days a week.

My cardio is geared towards training for half marathons and rest is very important. I was disagreeing with an earlier poster who implied that marathon runners need daily cardio. As far as I am concerned that is entirely false.