Are you exercising too much to be able to lose weight? Did you know that problem even exists? It’s true! It may feel as though the more you can work out, the better, but this isn’t the case. It’s definitely possible to overdo it!
If you are exercising too much, you can hold back your weight loss and your fitness at the same time. In fact, if you take it to a certain extent, you can actually stop your body from burning fat. As a result, it’s important to understand how active you should be in a day and limit it to that amount. This will stop your efforts from doing more harm than good.
Why is Exercising Too Much Bad?
When you’re exercising too much, it causes spikes in your cortisol hormone levels. The reason for that is that you are causing stress to your body by working it that hard. Even if you consider it to be positive stress, your body doesn’t know that and responds in the same way it would if it were under negative stress.
This only becomes worse if you stress about your workouts. Then, you’re combining emotional stress with exercising too much. Sending high amounts of cortisol into your body stops it from being able to burn off fat in an efficient way. Your body is too focused on trying to create a balance with your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
Stay Active!
Just because you shouldn’t be exercising too much, it doesn’t mean you should work out at all. Keep up your regular workouts, but make sure you’re being reasonable about the amount.
If you’re truly driven to stay active and want to do more than your recommended exercises allow, then make sure you change things up. Stop putting pressure on yourself and decide to do some more and less strenuous workouts.
For example, you may do HIIT workouts one day but also choose restorative fitness options such as walking, Pilates and yoga. These will help your recovery, energy levels and even your sleep. Doing this will also support your continued weight loss instead of overwhelming your system and stopping it from happening at all.
Don’t forget to change things up from one day to the next. If you focused on your legs one day in your strength training, don’t do it again the next day. Give your muscles time to recover. Instead, switch to another major muscle group while the ones you’ve already worked get ready for another time.
