Is anyone else racked with guilt if they don't exercise?

[Magnificen]

I'm a typical 50 something. Always been overweight. I look 'ok' but am def 2 or 3 stone overweight. Always losing and gaining the same 2lbs. Weight is definitely a big part of my daily thoughts although I am really trying to change my mindset and have improved. I am learning to accept myself and appreciate that life is too short to be constantly hating ones own body.

However I am utterly consumed with guilt if I don't exercise. I allow myself 2 days a week with no exercise. Today I dont feel well. Nothing serious. Just feeling bleurgh. I absolutely can't face swim/walk/gym but am consumed with guilt because I've already had a day off exercise.

I know that exercise has little impact on weight and that diet is the key but I just can't seem to give myself permission to be ok not exercising. I'm so jealous of my husband who plays golf once a week and does bugger all else but has zero guilt about it.

Does anyone else feel like this about exercise? It feels borderline like an eating disorder? Not sure I'm being dramatic tho. The guilt is absolutely all consuming tho.

(This thread is about guilt and exercise. I'm not looking for weight loss advice thank you)

I don't feel guilty but I do feel lethargic, slow and mentally a bit shit if I don't exercise for a week or so. Exercise is a bit of a trap, I started doing it for reasons of vanity but surprise! it turns out that it's even more important for your mental health just like the annoying exercise fanatics always said. So I've trapped myself into having to go for annoyingly long runs twice a week all through the pissing winter every year

Guilt is a really strong emotion. I really miss the buzz of exercising and feel wrong if I am not active, but I don’t think it’s guilt so much as craving the post workout buzz? Even a good walk makes me feel satisfied. Doing nothing leaves me flat. I don’t know if I’d call it guilt though.

It does sound like it could be verging on slightly disordered OP. I went through a phase of this, feeling guilty if I didn’t exercise, setting myself quite high goals and being hard on myself if I didn’t achieve them. For some of this time, I was also very seriously counting calories, weighing all my food etc. It wasn’t healthy. I’m quite short and naturally fairly solid and by the time I got down to the lower bit of my ‘healthy’ BMI range, I didn’t look or feel great. I was too thin at that weight, so stepped right back from the food thing- stopped calorie counting. Around that time, I also got into weight training which I absolutely love, and which for me totally took my focus off how much I weighed. So many women find it empowering and it creates such a great body shape that you don’t care how much you weigh. Everything just looks ‘tighter’!

I’d like to say I stopped obsessively exercising and I did…kind of, but just became an instructor so now I exercise 13 times a week 😂 So I don’t know what the answer is other than it might be the kind of thing CBT could help with- if you feel it’s becoming a problem. It was a problem for me because it was interfering with my life a bit. For example, sometimes I’d go to the gym in the morning, and then if I later had a cake or something, I’d ‘have to’ go for a run in the evening to bring my calories back down because the cake hadn’t been in my daily calorie plan 🙄 So yes, it took some of my time away from my DH and DCs which wasn’t great, and it just felt like hard work nagging myself all the time about exercise. I don’t have to nag myself about it now 😂

No.

Yes I do it too

Can totally relate. Got Covid recently and had zero energy for 3 weeks. Just couldn’t exercise at all. Freaked me out as on my mind to stay in my bmi I need to exercise pretty much daily.

I only feel guilty if I've lazily skipped exercise for no good reason. I have six exercise days and one day off (tracked by smart watch) but one exercise day might be a few minutes of weights only so it's not too much.

I'd also wonder if you enjoy the exercise you do. I fit two dance styles into mine and I love that.

Yes, but only because some form of exercise is absolutely necessary for good health. I'd also feel guilty if I failed to do something else necessary for good health, like eating sensibly. I think the guilt is a good thing, if not taken to extremes.

So I've trapped myself into having to go for annoyingly long runs twice a week all through the pissing winter every year

But you don't have to do that, @gannett !

Try strength training with dumbbells.
Caroline Girvan.
Look her up!
Totally life-changing 😎

Yes. Feel guilt and anxiety.