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My common sense suffers… AND I have no clue about how normal people exercise as I have issues with over-exercise and over-exertion. Someone give me an example of sane and simple? Maybe like a weekly schedule?
Walking around in the sun for a half hour so a day. 30 minutes of weight training 2-3 times per week, not going to failure, and always stopping a few reps before your threshold.
Better to give 70% effort continually, always leaving a little in the tank for next time, than 95% for two months and then crash and burn.
During my ED recovery and during healing my metabolism I it was crucial for me to stop the compulsive exercise and just chill out as much as possible. My mottos: Eat and lounge, sleep a lot. The only form of exercise I can wholeheartedly recommend during ED recovery from my own experience is short walks in the sun to get a little movement and some light. Otherwise, sleep, lounge, and above all eat.
I was once upon a time a compulsive exerciser. I lifted weights, hiked, and practiced intense yoga for hours daily. But I’m happier now than I was then, and today I have no exercise routine at all. I go for short walks with my kids. I did two push-ups yesterday, and that was the first time I’d done any push-ups in at least six months. I swing a kettlebell for a few minutes (literally) every few weeks. And I swing some indian clubs for shoulder mobility every once in a while…for maybe 5 minutes at a time at most. That’s it. Nothing compulsive. Nothing super intense. I do it for fun and because it feels good. It’s never stressful. Never because I feel that I should. Never because I’m afraid that if I don’t I’ll get fat and lazy. I only move in the ways that I enjoy.
Oh, and I do some Feldenkrais movement, which is fantastic for exploring my body in a really gentle, pleasurable way. Totally not “exercise”, but way better in my opinion.
I think this is going to depend on a number of variables: your level of fitness, your state of health, your age, etc. Obviously you don’t want to be weight training every day. 2-4 times per week suffices. Conditioning work 2-4 times per week (again, according to the above parameters).
At this point my fitness level is high, and I am young but I have done damage before. Two injuries this past year, from overuse and never resting. I scaled down, no plyo, no HIIT, more yoga, more simple movements, low impact. I feel better and enjoy exercise more but it is still an obsession. Would like to learn to take a couple days off a week. I love exercise, have always been an athlete, but I need to look at my priorities as well.
J-lo I understand your reasoning for stopping exercise. I should have at the beginning of my recovery because I was very underweight and slowly dying. I didn’t and paid for it. Now, I would like to better understand moderation since I am eating enough to sustain exercise. Thanks again for your inspiring posts though, your resilience is amazing!
Matt recommends progressive exercise, where you do slightly more each session. Is this the only way to get more fit after refeeding or do people have success losing weight with regular low intensity(like a short jog every day or every other day, or one aerobics class a week) exercise? Anyone know?
Also, anyone have experience with Bikram yoga and its effect on metabolism?
@bnowell724 – I have experience with Bikram yoga. I stay far away from it based on my own negative experiences. Apart from any metabolic effects, Bikram is macho and forceful and a lot of people get hurt. From a metabolic standpoint, this is purely conjecture on my part, but I highly suspect that it would be damaging to metabolism health. The conditions are perfect for stress – intense activity and intense heat. Plus, classes last considerably longer than 45 minutes, which is meant to be the cutoff point at which it is more or less guaranteed that stress hormones will start dominating. So it seems to me that Bikram would be a bad idea.
Thank you J-lo- I did it for a short while and liked the great stretched out relaxed feeling after class, but it is a pretty intense form of exercise, possible too intense. I guess it depends on how the individual’s metabolism reacts to those conditions. I could see how some people’s bodies might really respond well to it, with proper hydration.
Something I noticed and thought strange is that some people go 5-7 days a week for many months, and are allegedly burning hundreds and hundreds of calories per class, and still don’t have great bodies. And through my research I found that a lot of “experts” say you need to go five times a week to see your body transform- that’s a LOT of time and effort.
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