I’ve been curious about if they’re is such thing as “working out too much”, that I have started to do some research about it and decided to start work on an feature article (and video package) on it.

Here is what I’ve found heading into this article.

This is idea of working out too much is actually called Exercise Bulimia.  In which all you do is work out, think about working out, watch what you do and actually control your life around working out.

This disease is almost features a compulsion around working out almost like a eating disorder that involves things such as missing work or appointments to work out, not taking rest days to recover, or even working out for hours at a time on a daily basis
to name a few.

Dangers of this disease involve Heart and reproductive problems, injuries i.e. stress fractures, strains/sprains, etc.

This disease has the psychological affect of keeping one’s self-esteem of body image down as they try to aim for this ideology of the “perfect body”.

Now, in reality, how often should we workout?  Let’s try 3-5 days a week for about an hour at a time for cardiovascular purposes, 2-3 days for weight training.  Not any of these six to seven day a week purposes because you got to give your body a rest to recover so you can put on that muscle, (as well as muscle endurance), and/or cardiovascular endurance.

The reason I wanted to do this article is because we live in an society that demands perfection with the media and these Photoshop pictures and what have you.  Whenever with the body or the mind; it’s gotten to the point that we have got a name for it.  It doesn’t really help, in my opinion, that our media outlets plaster this and praise how grand it is and drive people insane to get to that particular look.

For example, I read on a bulletin board online that a person has consumed about 500 calories and burnt like 600 and was asking if it was good.  It isn’t, to maintain life, you need a minimum of 1200 calories a day.  This is because your body needs fuel to go where you want to go physically.

Trust me, working out is great and all; but there is an limit to it.  You got to give your body a rest somehow.

What I have decided to do is to set up interviews with trainers, one or two experts with exercise/nutrition to see how many people want this perfection and how many quit after not getting immediate results, etc. Also too, I would interview psychologist to see what causes obsessions and why it starts.

Then I would interview people to get their opinions on the issue on hand.

For me, I have fallen for this disease a few times, and been trying to snap out of it myself.  I will find this not to be educational for myself, but to make it known that there are other ways to approach this issue at hand.

sources:

http://exercise.about.com/cs/exercisehealth/a/exercisebulimia.htm

http://www.fitwatch.com/exercise/how-often-should-you-exercise-1356.html

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/486042-can-you-exercise-too-much