exercise addiction

[fitone1970]

I am a personal trainer and a fitness class instructor. I don't own a car and do at least an hour of commuting on a bicycle to clients/classes. I have a seventy five pound dog that I take for three walks accumulating to about 1.5 hours. I also excercise at the gym everyday. The cardio is fairly low intensity (ellipital, light jog, swim) and I try to do weights about two-three times a week. On top of teaching low impact classes on average twice a day.
I had anorexia when I was a teen and I'm 33 and now have a very good diet. My body aches a lot. I know it's because I'm not allowing my muscles to rest. But I can't miss a workout. I feel too depressed and can't function. I can't give up classes because that's my source of income. Bicycling is the most affordable and enjoyable form of transportation for me and my dog needs his exercise too. I know it would help to take the cardio out of my own workouts. What I know is I get cardio a lot from my other activities. But I feel I need that 30 minutes of straight cardio or ...the depression kicks. I wonder if anyone can offer advice on how to do it all or find a way for me to maintain my personal strength and endurance while keeping everything the way it is. Is that even possible..drug free ?

[Lost Dog]

Are you in therapy for the addiction? You've got to get the addiction under control. Stress comes from many parts of life. Mental and physical. If you don't get a handle on this, your stress levels will rise, causing even more problems.

The bike, class, and dog aren't much of an issue. But, getting depressed when you don't workout every day is a big problem.

[Terry Monk]

Originally Posted by Lost_Dog

The bike, class, and dog aren't much of an issue. But, getting depressed when you don't workout every day is a big problem.

I couldn't agree more.

My wife went through something like this a few months back. She found that she was OCD. Felt she HAD to work out or ..... I don't know. I'm not saying that's you, but there definitely is an issue and you need help dealing with it. I know you want to do it drug free, but you may not realize how much a simple pill can help releave the pressure.
If absolutely nothing else, seek some type of professional help for at least one session to see what they think.
I hope you do well and continue to post here.

[Dogmama]

Fitone-

I read a lot of perfectionism issues in your post. I had the same problem and can easily slip back into it. One of the problems is - this is like workaholism - it is generally lauded in our society.

I receive outside help both from a psychiatrist for meds and a psychologist for therapy. Yeah, I wish I could be Joe-Normal, but I'm not. I have a lot of inherited and learned garbage that I've carried around for a long time. If you suffered from anorexia, you probably need outside help too.

Look at it this way - for some reason, your body/brain chemistry is different. A diabetic's body chemistry is different too. Would you tell a diabetic to NOT take insulin - just tough it out?

[jvernacchio]

Just like everything else people can over due everything even if its supposed to be good for you. The first part is to recognize the problem the next step is getting some help for it. Sounds like you have replaced one problem (anorexia)with another (training addiction). You may take a look at the DSM IV and check under Body Dysmorphic Disorder and go through the list and see how many symptoms you have. Take a look at this site:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/bod...559/DSECTION=5

A friend of mine ended up in the hospital with liver toxicity because he was over training (7 days a week sometimes 2 times a day) and taking way too many supplements (about 35 different pills a day). His body finally just said fuck it and quit on him for a while. He had to learn the hard way.

Besides getting depressed if you miss the personal cardio what do you think will happen to you if you take it out of your workout? Do you think you will get fat? Do you look at yourself in the mirror the next day and feel guilty or start to notice extra weight? If that is the case the (anorexia) is still there just in a different form. Get an oppinion from a professional because if you dont your heading down a path that in the end you wont want to be at.