Regular gym goers - do you go for a 'no pain, no gain' approach, or do you keep it enjoyable?

[VaginaPuddleduck]

I've been going to the gym 3 times a week for the last couple of months after having a loooong hiatus while I had two DC in two years.

My gym encourages you to do regular fitness review which they encourage you to take after 4 weeks. I've been avoiding this because I'm enjoying just exercising again and I don't want to start putting targets on things and getting all obsesssed about how much I weigh, how much body fat I've lost etc etc.

I just want to live a healthy life that include regular exercise as part of it. Spoke to one of the instructors at the gym when I was saying I couldn't make my programme review and she said as long as I was absolutely pushing myself until I felt that I couldn't do any more then I was working at the right level.

I'm a 33 year old mother of two with a BMI of 26. I need to lose a bit of weight, I work at the gym - I run 3.5 miles at 6.8 miles an hour with an incline of 1% then row for 15 mins (2600 metres) at level 7 and if I have time spend 10 mins on the cross trainer (although I admit I hate that).

Is it ok that I push myself but don't come out of the gym exhausted/red faced/sweaty or anything like that? I just want to enjoy exercising and I felt as though that wasn't enough - it HAS to be punishing. Does it?

I do similar to you - it keeps me going, if I pushed myself harder I wouldn't go at all!

Thank you duckyfuzz! That's exactly how I feel.

Years ago I went to a gym where the instructor advised to always leave feeling you could do more - that way, when you thought about the last time you went, you wouldn't have unhappy memories of how hard it was so you'd be more inclined to return! That always worked for me.

I don't know, I just felt like when I talked about it, what I was doing wasn't good enough. It's a minimum of 45 mins cardio every other do, fit in around a really busy life with two pre schoolers who don't sleep much. Honestly, I don't feel as though I have much of myself to give!

Shameless bump.

I know it's boring but someone else must have thoughts.

I used to teach exercise to patients and the theory is that you should be pushing yourself to feel like you're doing something to you're body - so feel breathless, sweaty and exerted but not so hard that you cant speak due to breathlessness/exhaustion. And these were patients returning to the gym so its applicable to everyone.

We used a rating of perceived exertion scale that I still use when I exercise. Google RPE or Borg.

Think pushing yourself to your limit is only heading you towards giving up at the gym altogether.

Canella, that's really useful, thanks so much.