Are you a workout junkie?

Don't you mean "moral" of the story? It hurts our morale to see spelling errors from an editor-in-chief.

;-)

i had a great aunt who never worked out in her life, she had 11 kids and she ate biscuits and gravy, bacon and sausage, whole milk, and eggs for breakfast her whole life. she laughed at exercise and smiled if some one said: you need to move around more. maybe she should have listened then she might have lived longer than the 109 years she lived. she might have lived longer since she died from pneumonia because she would not listen to her doctor when he told her not to sleep in her bed, but to sleep sitting up.

Let's remember that over exercising is RARELY a problem! Not exercising enough is a much bigger problem for most people and is of course adding to the health crisis in our country. Interesting article but completely useless for 99.9% of the population....

Over training is the silent killer for the health conscious person. We think we are doing a good thing, but in turn we're making our bodies worse.
Thanks for the reminder.

Congrats on the gain Brooke! It's not easy, but like you said, it's all about balance and it's so hard to find healthy support for gaining weight. People will insist that you gain more, or sometimes less (if they're jerks who want to mess with your head)and general verbal clutter about what you should be doing with your body. So good for you for knowing yourself!
I just got back from vacation and managed to work out everyday, but I did give myself a day to sleep in and let myself have a couple of deserts :)
It's comforting to get to a place where healthy eating and exercise are a lifestyle and not an obsession (oh the fine line). I got some weird looks for eating egg whites at every meal and for choosing club soda with lime over endless cocktails, but I know myself and I know what works and what makes me feel good. And I made sure to limit my workouts to one solid hour of good gym time and I did not count calories, just chose healthy foods and avoided the strange combinations and heavy fried foods.
I've taken the past two days off, coming home and re-settling, but am looking forward to my local gym tomorrow!

I think Americans are in a vicious cycle of eating a lot and then exercising MORE to stay in their skinny jeans; rein it all in with a FREE lifestyle program at www.fill-my-cup.com. Support and accountability to eating less, eating intuitively and connecting with your core physically and emotionally. I am biased, since I am the creator - but e-mail me if you have any questions or comments, Julie

I am going to have to disagree. I work out all the time. My family calls me a gym rat. Working out gives you an extra boost that helps you calm down and look at things realistically- not to mention the benefit of looking good and feeling good about yourself as well. I think sleeping and emotional problems come from other sources of your life that are off balance. And as far as the being sore from doing the same thing bit- you shouldn't be doing the same workout everyday. Like for me I rotate shoulder/back, legs/butt, and arm days in which I focus on that group alone for that day doing different varities of excercises matched with old time favorites. I also take random days off from lifting/strengthening to keep my muscles guessing, on those days I just do cardio.

ChrisY, there are certainly a lot of people that are over-training and just because you don't know of them doesn't mean it isn't happening. I assume you don't belong to a large gym. Anyone who does knows who is there all the time and who is working out a couple hours a day without fail. Yes, there are many people in this country that need more exercise but there are certainly and definately many people that are doing too much.

This happened to me, but it was when I was over-exercising and not eating enough calories...15 gained pounds later, i can exercise so much longer, am more toned, and FEEL so much better, and to me, I'm far from over weight still, but try not to concentrate on the dreaded scale as much as being healthy:)
I felt awful during my year of over-exercing. No energy, tired but unable to rest, moody, weak, and emotionally strung out (i'd get annoyed easier, cry easier, harder on myself, always carrying guilt, more judgemental of others and myself, in and out of feeling so low, etc).

Just always remember the cliche of moderation. It's a winner everytime.

Hours of mindless exercise every day? No wonder these people get depressed. You'd need the IQ of a rock to keep that kind of routine.

unfortunately, a lot of the Symptoms listed could also be attributed to a Thyroid Condition! Best to consult a Physician if 'any' of these are experienced whether your a hard core workout Junkie or not!

Wow, I wouldn't of ever guessed that there were so many negative effects from over-exercising. I just had no clue they could be that bad, like the emotional effects...I thought that exercising-no matter how much-was supposed to do the complete opposite!

Most people I see walking down the street are in as much danger from overtraining as I am of sprouting wings and flying to the moon. To what percent of the population does this actually apply? 1%? Anyone with the time to hold a full time job is in very little danger of actually overtraining their body unless they have no other life. Look at the way olympic athletes train, it's insane and they're very healthy pushing their body to the absolute limits. The odds that your silly evening run, strength or pilates classes are landing you in the overtraining danger zone is frankly misguided. Most people do not train all that hard. For example: Are you throwing up while or after training? If so, then overtraining is likely. But that your muscles are sore, your heart rate is still a little high after intense workouts, you have trouble sleeping and you get a cold sometimes is not an indicator to let you know that you're overtraining. Training badly and getting injured, that's a different story that can be remedied with education but let's not pretend that's overtraining. Besides, anyone who walks through a mall or an airport in the US can tell you that overexercise is completely not the problem as much as a complete LACK OF EXERCISE and nutrition are EPIDEMIC and are cutting millions of lives short every year. Let's focus on that and motivate people TO EXERCISE and not provide some kind of rationalization not to do so. "Well, I wouldn't want to overtrain, that's also unhealthy." Please. Put down the Häagen-Dazs and step away from the TV.

mystery, I do belong to a large gym. I work out regularly and I know a number of people who train every single day. I went to school at an Olympic training center; I know what the human body is capable of. I know people who have overtrained and I myself have overtrained. I never said that there aren't people who overtrain, read what I said again. You're using the words 'many' and 'a lot' to denote some kind of equivalency between huge differences in demographic percentages. How many people overtrain? 1% / 2% of the population? That's generous. That's 3 / 6 million people. The CDC denotes that at least 33% of Americans are obese. 99 million people. Not the same. Aside from which overtraining (not injury) is generally temporary and not life threatening, unlike diabetes and heart disease which are and flow directly from obesity. People need reasons to work out and articles that put fear, uncertainty and doubt about the merits of fitness in the minds of people whose health depends on it are not, in my view, particularly helpful.

I can not participate now in discussion - there is no free time. I will return - I will necessarily express the opinion on this question.

Good and interesting article, thanks!