When addiction to exercise turns ugly

Sometimes more is just not better when it comes to exercise. Although, the majority of people in Canada barely get enough exercise to sustain optimal health, there is a small portion of the population that takes fitness too far to the point of harming themselves.

These people have a disorder of sorts. Either it's an eating disorder coupled with an exercise compulsion. Over exercise when coupled with an eating disorder becomes about something completely apart from health.

Then there are the people who can't stop themselves from over training despite the effects on their joints or overall health. To me, I wonder what are these people running from.

Having spent much of my adulthood immersed in an industry apparently promoting health, I have come to find that many fitness professionals suffer from exercise compulsion to the point of over training. I know this first hand. I have been engaged in a cycle of over exercise at different points in the my life thinking that clocking more time sweating somehow equated to being more fit all the while missing the big picture. In my late teens I was also in a less severe but not healthy cycle of severely limiting my calories while clocking over 2 hours of exercise a day. This behaviour, I can attest, was not about health.

People who have an unhealthy addiction to exercise (these are some signs, not hard and fast rules):

1) will exercise despite injury only to do more harm

2) will push themselves during workouts despite illness or fatigue

3) see themselves as more productive than most people who are less active

4) feel very very guilty to the point of distraction for taking time off of working out

5) are afraid they'll gain weight if they miss a couple workouts

6) potentially suffer body dismorphic disorder, seeing an entirely different body in the mirror than actually exists

7) severely restrict calories or binge eat and feel a need to 'work off the calories' from a binge

8) don't see the need to focus on restorative activities in order to maintain health

9) sometimes can't concentrate on other things because he or she is always thinking about exercise

10) skip special events and activities in order to exercise

11) find it difficult to exercise with other people in order to not disrupt routines

And I feel for people stuck in this cycle because society rewards people in this situation because they might seem to have it more together. Yhey are so 'disciplined', often look fit yet they suffer in silence because like any other addiction, they are using exercise to chase away pain.

Like any other addiction, people who are ignoring their health and exercising out of a compulsion need to get help in facing their demons.

There is hope to find balance, to find a way to use exercise to enhance health and vitality and to embark on a new chapter of healing, rest and peace.

My heart goes out to anyone reading this who can't seem to stop. I understand where you are. Your compulsion is occupying too much of your life and thoughts. You deserve to heal.

Peace.
Jane