Hi Sherry:
sorry to hear you are feeling low and somehow it makes it worse that, a) you brought it on yourself and, b) it came about through too much of what you love!
So far everyone is saying "take a week off," but I have to disagree. A week will probably not cut it. A week's rest is fine when you are feeling extra sore, tired and achy, but you have pushed yourself well beyond this and into depression and insomnia and I am recommending you take a month off from formal/structured exercise because you need time to heal the mind and revise your attitude to your fitness program in addition to allowing the body to heal and rest.
The first week, do nothing but normal, daily activities and required household chores. Rest a lot. Sleep a lot. Start indulging yourself in whatever feels good and makes you happy. It is time to remind yourself that you deserve more than the daily punishment your fitness regime has become. You do not deserve punishment.
Use your self-imposed exercise time to catch up on fave TV programs, or films you never caught when they first came out. Give yourself permission to just lie on the couch, in a sunspot and read a damn good book and not move for an entire afternoon, except to fetch more tea and a snack. Use your time to re-discover what your brain and mind need and the other things your body needs to be healthy: time, rest, luxurious baths, healthy food. Spend some time exploring the cook books you own: what could you experiment with that you have never tried before? I find making home made soup from scratch to be wonderfully relaxing and fulfilling because it is not like all that sodium filled crap they sell in the stores and the aromas filling the kitchen are to die for. Forget the rigours of "clean eating" for a while. Follow your instincts to eat what your body needs, because right now, you are probably depleted in nutrients also. Use that apple to make a pie and then sit down and enjoy it and remember that daily life needs to include pleasure also, not just obligations, denial and punishment. Otherwise: what's the point? Stop and smell the roses. Get off the treadmill of thinking you always have to be doing something, always have to be moving, always have to be actively engaged physically, always have to accomplish something. Says who?!!!
After a couple of weeks of this, see how you feel and ask yourself, "what do I feel like doing?" Do some light exercise, BUT ONLY IF YOU WANT TO. If you cannot be bothered, if it starts to feel like you are feeling obligated to do exercise, then stop. You have to want to do it or you are again punishing yourself. Do something you don't normally do and that you associate with leisure time as your exercise: swim with friends, hike in the woods and enjoy the fall foliage, follow along with a yoga class because you've never done anything so SLOOOOOOOOOOOW in your life. No huffing and puffing, no pushing, no heavy weights, no expectations, no "having to" or "should" do anythings at all.
When you get back to more rigourous exercise, re-examine your expectations of yourself and your needs. Ignore most of the research that says you HAVE to do 3 sessions of HiiT and 3 of heavy lifting per week. Do yourself a favour. Aim for 4 workouts only for the first month after you start back. Think: slightly challenging but moderation. You don't have to do it all each session. Start selecting workouts because you love the music and it includes a favourite section or move, not because it ranks within the top 5 of Cathe's most demanding DVDs. Ignore what everyone else is doing. It is not a competition. You don't have to do "nosebleed" workouts just because someone on the forums reports that this is what they do. You don't have to workout for 2 hours each day, 6 days a week just because others have nothing better to do with their time and are slightly obsessed. Bully for them. This is not about them: it's about you. Think about taking a break from these forums because the whiff of exercise compulsion can get pretty strong around here sometimes. Make sure each week includes some low impact exercise so you are not always tempted to go "all out" and fall back into the cycle of burn out that leads to depression and/or injury.
It is not just your body that needs to recover here it is also your mind. You need a new attitude. Hopefully, some of these suggestions can help you get there and start treating yourself a little more kindly. If you don't, who will?
Good luck Sherry. here's wishing you a speedy recovery!
Clare
I knew it was coming on last week but I forged through and worked out anyway. I am to the point now that I physically cannot work out. I looked up the signs of overtraining and I pretty much have them all; shooting pains, soreness, stiffness, insomnia, depression, etc. Anyway, I was just wondering if anyone else has ever gotten to this point. I know that every body is different and we all recover at different rates, but if anybody has experienced this and the time it took to recover I would really like to hear from you. I'm a little concerned I got to this point in the first place and I would love some experience/advise from the educated crowd! TIA!
