REST DAYS. What does your rest day look like?

Been struggling with this myself. Would go weeks without rest days. Lately(since the beginning of the year) have been sleeping in a few days a week instead of up super early to the gym every day. I don't have the answer. Weeks on end wasn't good and I felt worthless when I didn't exercise and now I feel worthless for sleeping a few days a week. I actually have a plan focused around cardio, which day I lift and longer run days against a leg day-one day off a week. Never can make it happen.

As far as the rest of the day I agree with Mike. No intentional exercise.

Balance is the word I should have used. Searching for it as well....

My rest days are days with 0 intentional exercise and usually planted on the couch, unless I have errands to run.

carlaringuette wrote: »

Trying to get rid of the all or nothing thinking. Stuck into thinking I must get a workout in everyday or make up for it with 2 per day on the weekends when I miss one.

I know stinking thinking. Still a work in progress.

I started in October. 57 yrs old

Currently do one class Mon - Thurs
then cardio and weights Fri and Sat and a full body workout on Sunday that the trainer gave me when I joimed.

Classes are HIIT, Spin 2X, Zumba

What should a rest day look like?

I am just starting to focus on the food because I haven't gotten past the first 5 pounds. I've lost 7 and then it bumps back up. It can fluctuate 4 pounds in one day. So I only weigh once a week Clothes are looking better but I know the weight loss happens in the kitchen.

Looking to loose 70 total. 50 would be fantastic by my son's wedding in January.

Those are just side effects it's more about stress relief and getting healthy.

What does your rest day look like?

Depends...I only do what I would define as a "workout" 2-3x per week when I hit the weight room. Most of my exercise is what I would define as recreational activity...riding my bike, swimming, hiking, rock climbing, etc. I do some form of "exercise" pretty much daily most of the time, but it's not some kind of crazy intense "workout"...sometimes I do nothing at all, and that's just fine. I've been really busy this past week at work and having to work OT...I didn't do much in the way of exercise last week due to my schedule.

When I was doing more cycling events and specifically training for those, I took a couple rest days per week to recover from long rides and more intense training on the bike...at most, I would have maybe gone for a walk on those days and that's about it.

carlaringuette wrote: »

Trying to get rid of the all or nothing thinking. Stuck into thinking I must get a workout in everyday or make up for it with 2 per day on the weekends when I miss one.

I know stinking thinking. Still a work in progress.

I started in October. 57 yrs old

Currently do one class Mon - Thurs
then cardio and weights Fri and Sat and a full body workout on Sunday that the trainer gave me when I joimed.

Classes are HIIT, Spin 2X, Zumba

What should a rest day look like?

I am just starting to focus on the food because I haven't gotten past the first 5 pounds. I've lost 7 and then it bumps back up. It can fluctuate 4 pounds in one day. So I only weigh once a week Clothes are looking better but I know the weight loss happens in the kitchen.

Looking to loose 70 total. 50 would be fantastic by my son's wedding in January.

Those are just side effects it's more about stress relief and getting healthy.

What does your rest day look like?

This is so odd to me. Rest is rest. No yoga. No elliptical for "only" an hour. No 10 mile hike. Nothing, no intentional exercise. That is a rest day. It's how a former running coach spelled it out for me and how I've kept it.

My rest days? They involve absolutely no purposeful exercise. How much walking I do will depend on what I'm doing that day (today involved more walking than my typical Sunday), but I don't walk for exercise/fitness. I walk to get from point A to point B or because I want to get outside. The only time I take walking into consideration with regards to what constitutes a rest day for me is if I'm doing way more walking than I typically do (ex. if I'm at a conference). Typically I get one to three rest days a week. I need at least one rest day and I'm currently figuring out if I need two or not.

Someone else mentioned mental rest - that's not a thing I ever get, but that's an entirely different conversation for me. I wish I did, but I really don't.

I have a terrible tendency to forget about rest days. But when my body reminds me WITH A VENGEANCE, they ideally involve a lot of sitting quietly in the office or at home, but nipping out every couple of hours for a slow walk of ten or fifteen minutes. My idea is to do enough to unstiffen and warm up the muscles, without any hard work.

I try to stay pretty active and have a busy family schedule like most. I workout consistently as part of my lifestyle. I don’t have a set gym schedule, if I can’t make it I can’t make it and chalk it up as a rest day. Typically for me there is always something that comes up that prevents me from going to the gym at least one day out of the week. If nothing comes up then I workout all 7 days lol. So my rest days consist of no gym/exercise everything else is the same.

My rest day (Saturdays) simply consists of not going the gym to workout. The other 6 days of the week, I go to the gym.

As @runfiremamarun said, rest is important because that is when the body actually recovers from the stress of exercise. I'm 57 also and at our age unfortunately rest may be more important than when we were a bit younger.

For myself, on rest days I simply don't do any structured exercise. I may lay on the couch. Then again I might work in the yard, or take a slow easy bike ride around the neighborhood with my wife. Like for me, yard work may be physical activity but it's not the running or cycling that I would normally be doing - so those muscles get a break. Some days I might have 5,000 steps and other days 20,000. So for me a rest day is not necessarily sedentary - just not intentional exercise.

A rest day for me I just do my morning exercise class.

When I'm really going for it I'll add 2 20 minute walks during my workday and then do 30-60 minutes of cardio after I eat dinner at night while watching baseball.

I generally decide its a rest day if I can't walk straight after the morning class.

I.struggle so much with rest days. I'm usually watching videos of what workout I wanna do next ha! But last week I had to go away and had a forced week of rest and came back feeling stronger and more energetic and so well rested. I'm going to actually try to be positive about it and not think of it as skipping gym rather than healing and building muscle

You have great commitment. My question is, where did you get the idea that you must exercise every day? That is a 'false idea" that somehow you thought you should believe. EVERYONE, including the highest level elite athlete, needs rest days. Your body actually makes more progress on rest days than active days. Active days break down muscle and recovery days allow your muscles to rebuild.

My rest day has changed over the past five years and even now can vary based on how I'm feeling. It usually includes at least a couple miles of walking. Some people include a short bike ride or light run. Other days you might just need to completely "veg out."

Ultimately, your food will be more important to weight loss than exercise. I lost 150, following a deficit consistently the whole time. When I started, a 30 min weight workout 2x week and 15 min walking 3-4x week was all I could do. But I still lost weight with a calorie deficit. As I've improved my fitness, my activity level has increased. Now I'm in maintenance for 2.5 years. Currently I swim 2-3x, bike 2-3x, and lift weights on any remaining days, and walk 2-4 miles almost every day. In the winter I did weights 3x because I wasn't biking. I always need 1-2 days during the week for recovery.

Read the sticky posts here on MFP that explain how to weigh your food on a digital food scale, how to log accurately, and how to determine the amount of exercise calories to eat back (usually about half).

A rest day to me still includes a 1-2 mile walk with the dogs. Nothing strenuous. If I’m really worn out I might just do nothing, but that’s rare. The dogs need to be walked!

I don't really have any advice about rest days, because I'm not an "all-or-nothing" person. I work out at the gym 3 to 5 days a week, and I'm good with that, although I prefer at least 4 days. My "rest days" are just days that I don't work out. I'm pretty sedentary, so I don't do much other than regular housework and maybe some yard work on those days.

I admire you for being so dedicated at the gym! But I do hope you can find a bit more balance; it's not the end of the world if you miss one day, and you certainly don't have to make it up by doing 2 workouts on another day. But I know it's not easy to change thinking that's been in place for years. My mom has been a perpetual dieter throughout my whole life, and even in my 40s, I'm still working to unlearn things I picked up watching and listening to her as a kid.

Good luck to you as you continue on and start working more on the food side of things. You've been dedicated to working out since October, so you clearly have it in you to be dedicated to tracking and all that stuff, too.