COMPULSIVE EXERCISING

In the media and society itself, people are always trumpeting the health benefits of regular exercise, so this can be difficult to avoid if you’re struggling with compulsive exercise.

Some of my clients feel they can only eat if they’re over exercising, and if this isn’t possible, immense feelings of guilt, anxiety, irritability, and distress overwhelm them.

Many people go crazy with exercise to try and control their weight. At every given opportunity, they’re exercising like a never-ending hamster on a wheel. But your body needs time to heal between exercise sessions.

Are you over-exercising? Let's look at warning signs to identify if your relationship with exercise is unhealthy:

No flexibility in your exercise routine?

Does the guilt, anxiety, distress flood in if your routine is delayed or interrupted?

If you’re ill or have an injury, is the need to exercise greater than rest?

Never having a rest day?

Due to exercise avoiding school, work, or social events?

If you can relate to any of the above, then it’s time to start to address your behaviors.

What problems can compulsive exercise cause?

Let me explain so you have a clear understanding of why you need to change this immense pressure to exercise.

With energy supplies depleted from over exercise and/or lack of food:

●         Your bones become weak, which could cause bone fractures.

●         It could affect your heart and lead to heart failure.

●         For girls and women, a loss of menstrual period.

• You experience unhealthy weight loss.

●         Here comes the dehydration again! Your body will become too dehydrated, and that can cause many issues from blurred vision, dizziness, confusion, feeling faint, which could lead to organ failure and even death.

Compulsive exercising can increase your anxiety and stress levels with the pressure you put on yourself. So, to begin to break free from compulsive exercise, start to identify the specific parts of your relationship to exercise that are problematic for you.

ITS TIME BECOME AWARE OF YOUR BEHAVIOUR

Looking at what’s causing you to over exercise:

What thoughts are driving you to over exercise? Oh yes, there could be a multitude of these beasts.

For example:

"I had that donut at break time, so I must work out for longer."

"I'm looking fat today, so I must work out harder.”

“I feel worthless, and exercise makes me feel more confident.”

“It helps to reduce my anxiety and calms me.”

“When I exercise, if I don’t feel completely exhausted at the end, then I’m not perfect.”

Therefore, this extreme pressure to increase the length or difficulty of their exercise routine intensifies.

Oh yes, these darn thoughts… It’s back to that leprechaun and his devious whisperings that need to be addressed. So, tune into what thoughts and feelings you’re trying to mask by overexercising?

It all comes back to your thoughts and feelings that drive this behavior.

Complete the OVER - EXERCISE CAUSES & NEW COPING STRATEGIES table below or grab your notebook and complete this list of your thoughts and feelings that cause your behavior of over-exercising. Now is the time to challenge these. Once you have your list, then create new powerful positive coping strategies.

OVER - EXERCISE CAUSES & NEW COPING STRATEGIES:

THE CAUSES                                                    NEW COPING STRATEGIES

Then once you have your list, it’s time to address how you can change this pattern and complete it in the same table. For example:

• Reduce the length of time you exercise by 10 minutes to begin with.
• Cut back on the number of aerobic classes per week.
• Add one rest day to your week.

Just the thought of reducing the amount of exercise may cause feelings of panic or stress, but this will only be temporary, and as you take this slowly, the more you challenge your patterns, the easier it will become over time.

Rather than exercising, what else could you do? What feelings are you trying to block, replace, squash? Adopt your new coping strategies to replace the old feelings you’re striving to achieve by exercising.