How hard should I exercise?

Exercise? When I read articles I notice more and more that there is a massive trend in the fitness industry which glorifies exercise as an all-out war on the body.

Go hard or go home…I really don’t think so!

This fashion is a symptom of a much larger disease. We live in a culture obsessed with success and results, and it has found its way into every aspect of our lives, even our workouts.

We want results hence we go to work, study, socialise, eat healthily and exercise. We do all this because we want good grades, money for our work, friends to watch out for us and we exercise because we want to either lose weight, stay younger for longer, tone up or just to stay in shape.

From a young age, we’re bombarded with the message that to be successful, we must work hard, sacrifice our health, vitality and much more to achieve what we want.

We live in the future that comes from our actions today. Which is absolutely fine but sometimes how about we do things in the now, because we enjoy it!

When it comes to exercise we also made to believe that the more the better, the harder the faster.
There are so many other toxic believes circulating around in our body-beautiful obsessed world:

• To lose weight I have to eat less and exercise more
• No pain, no gain. You have to suffer to get in shape
• More is always more. Duh.
• Working out is no fun, but it’s an obligation
• If I’m not pushing myself I will not get results
• You’re only as good as your last workout
• I feel like a loser when I miss a workout
• Sugar is the devil!! I must never eat sugar again!

No wonder so much of the exercising population ends up burnt out and ready to hang their trainers up. Exhaustion Is Not a Status Symbol

Well, exhaustion actually is a status symbol in our culture. And that’s the problem—we’re working and training ourselves to exhaustion.
Being chronically exhausted is not the key to success. It’s a race towards ill health and in most cases it is 100 percent preventable.
Our ?culture can be summed up pretty easily: too much yang, not enough yin; too much doing, not enough stillness; too much work, not enough play.

Exercise. Is there a different way?

There are many different ways; however life is a continuous experiment which requires patience.
There are many people who love dancing and dance their way to health and happiness. Others enjoy practicing martial arts or Thai Chi their way to fitness. Then there are the yogis, who use movement as a way to manifest their ideal body.

To reach your fitness goals, you will need to face your limits and learn to try different things out. Don’t use this post as an excuse to justify lack of movement as your body might be asking you to move, hence you would be out of sync again from what your body is telling you.
My intension in this article isn’t to judge fitness professionals whom advocate high intensity training. For some people that is the best thing to do. My message is that it might not be right for everybody.

Find the middle ground. Listen to your body’s language and its signals, so you know which days you should work harder and which days you need to take it easier or rest. This is something you can’t outsource, no experts will have the answer, and the better you get at listening to how your body feels, the easier it is to exercise as you won’t be doing anything your body detesting against. All health and fitness goals require consistency. It’s a journey not a destination.

To find out more about Judit and her philosophies as well as how to have a free consultation please visit www.lovefitnessonline.com