BellaOnline Forums Health and Fitness Exercise Skipped workout yesterday and it felt gooood : )

I was physically and mentally tired yesterday so I decided to take the day off from work and exercise. I skipped my planned workout and took a long nap, watched a movie, and just did nothing. It felt great to just relax. I did stretch a bit in the evening but it was very restorative compared to the usual yoga practice I do.

I really believe that when you eat healthy and exercise with adequate intensity daily your body tells you when to rest. If you listen to your body and do get some rest the reward is a boost in energy levels and a completely focused mind until your body needs rest again.

If you feel the need to take a day off all the time then start eating that healthy and getting some form of restorative exercise daily and that will change faster than you can imagine.

Read my article Balanced Workouts for Ultimate Fitness for tips on how to get started with this.

Hi Monica,
I used to be so rigid & structured with my workouts that I'd feel guilty taking a day off. Nowadays I really listen to what my body's telling me & I incorporate rest days if really needed (sometimes that just means going for a walk or doing some gentle yoga).

It's very liberating being flexible with my workouts & just realizing my body just needs some kind of movement daily (rather than stressing about fitting a certain type of working in at a specific time/day).

It also helped when I finally decided to eat for nourishment rather than having to exercise to burn all those extra empty calories.

Eating healthy definitely makes a big difference. It does wonders to regulate hormones and energy production as well as sleep and all this makes exercise so much more enjoyable.

After experiencing no pain from last week's hiking and walking I added some intense lower body exercises back into my routine jumping lunges, lateral hops, single leg squats. I had not done this stuff in nearly a year. I think this is why my body was tired and a bit sore but that day off made a huge difference.

How are your workouts going? Are you running again or not yet?

Great to hear you're back into the swing of things. I remember when I first starting doing squats & lunges after my runner's knee finally healed after nearly 7 months - I was so excited.

I'm halfway through my 6-week upper body strength program. Since my upper body workout is pretty intense I've been doing corework & lower body work on different days. It's the 1st time I've split my workouts like this & it's pretty cool doing some kind of strength training everyday. (I used to dread strength-training because I thought I'd have to do at least 30-45 minutes at least 2-3x/week.)

Not doing much running except for running after my daughter at the park or beach (it feels more like sprinting than running). My ankle feels fine so I'll probably start running again next month, albeit slowly & 10 minutes only.

Same here : ) I switch to a split program every now and then and it's pretty amazing how the body responds to the switch. I just started sprinting at the park again too but being very careful not to over do it. It's not easy when I have somebody teasing me "come on why are you just jogging?"

That makes me want to sprint fast and some days I do but only 1-2 sprints. It's hard to hold back but I know I would regret it if I ramped it up too fast. Let me know how it goes when you start back up with running.

Have you tried any thera band ankle exercises or heel walks? That always speeds up the healing process : )

I had a sports therapist friend who gave me some guidance on ankle exercises (including the theraband) & it helped a lot. Will let you know how it goes.

Also, same here regarding eating too many carbs recently. Feeling a little bloated as a result so going into detox mode & eating clean to offset the effects. I'm done feeling guilty about indulging a little more than planned & I just listen to my body & I get back on track.