ADELE WORKS OUT THREE TIMES A DAY IS IT HEALTHY?
The gym’s my happy place,” my client said. “I get a rush from working out – and I hate how I feel when I don’t.”
In her early 40s, and a mother of two, she was in great shape physically. She loved the attention and praise she got for the way she looked.
She’d come to therapy after a foot injury wouldn’t heal. Not being able to get to the gym every day had spiked her anxiety. She felt guilty about doing nothing. She was moody, agitated and grumpy with her partner and kids. “It’s so frustrating,” she said. “I’m fine when I can exercise.”
It’s a common story: Most people are quick to acknowledge that exercise is a key player in helping them feel good, both physically and mentally.
But they can be reluctant to admit how desperately they need to exercise – how closely it ties to their eating habits and body image – and how much mental energy it takes to navigate it all.
SO WHEN IS IT TOO MUCH?
There’s no clinical diagnosis for exercise addiction – you won’t find it in the manuals of psychiatric disorder.
But it does fit into the framework of behavioural addictions (or compulsive behaviour) which spring from obsessive thinking, such as excessive hand-washing, repeated checking or hoarding.
Exercise “addiction” is often linked to disordered eating and/or body image struggles – in fact, I can’t think of anyone I’ve worked with where this hasn’t been the case, at least to some extent.
When exercise is enmeshed with eating or body-image issues, it functions to achieve a goal outside exercise, such as losing weight, sculpting muscle or controlling anxiety. And that can spin out of control.
So how much is too much? Studies suggest exercise turns into a compulsion for about 3% of gym-goers, rising to 10% among high-performance runners and those in sports where leanness is perceived to influence results.
But those figures probably don’t account for the many – more likely women and not necessarily athletes – who need to exercise to feel okay and feel distressed when they can’t.
Pop star Adele, a self-described “exercise addict” who has fought back against relentless body shaming, said recently she was “back on her gym grind like nobody’s business, doing two or three sessions a day”.
That’s enough to make most of us recoil in horror. But whether it’s too much depends on the type, length and intensity of the exercise. And, arguably, her motivation for doing so.
The key is to be honest with yourself as to how much exercise you’re doing and how much of your time it’s demanding – physically and mentally.
Here are the signs you may be going too far:
Your mood is negatively affected when you can’t exercise. (An injury layoff sends you into a spiral of low mood and irritability.)
Skipping (or the idea of missing) your workout makes you anxious, panicky, self-critical and guilty.
You are constantly sore/fatigued. You change or organise plans to accommodate your workouts – never the other way around. If you miss a workout you juggle everything to make up.
Your main exercise goal (if you’re honest) is to reduce body fat or to change how you are seen by others.
Your level of control around exercise and eating habits is closely related. You’re closely running trade-offs in your head. If I do this, I can eat that.
You struggle with a poor body image no matter how much you work out (or you like your body only when you’re smashing it with exercise).
Many people experience one or two of these signs occasionally, but take note if you’re saying yes to a cluster of them.
The key is to clock when “I want to work out” turns into “I must work out”; whether it’s taking up too much mental space, putting too much strain on your body or hurting your relationships. And whether it’s your only strategy for dealing with stress.
If so, maybe it’s time to step off the treadmill and try an art class instead?