Within the context of this blog. What I mean by exercising every day, means those planned workouts that you might do in the gym or at home. It’s not an uncommon occurrence for people to think they need to go to the gym 5 days per week. To lose weight or to improve your current health.
Do you need to exercise 5 days per week?
So first off, there are some pros and cons with this approach. That number of exercise sessions is a lot. Would I recommend being as physically active as possible? Yes, absolutely. But will you actually commit to exercising every day longer than a few weeks? We need to factor our real life, so everyone taking a break from exercise. Because we willl go on a holiday, or we travel for work at times further away. Perhaps attend live events, like festivals.
Sometimes if you don’t have something on, you may miss one or two sessions. Well, you may be more likely to beat yourself over it and feel down about it. At times you may not be feeling getting an exercise session done. So you could feel tired. Perhaps you might not feel well, such as a cold or the flu. If you’re not well then I would recommend taking some time out until you feel better.
Most people, do not need to spend every day in the gym or at home working out. Whether it’s to maintain a healthy weight or experience the many benefits of getting “fitter”. If I don’t recommend that often, then how many would I recommend? So for the vast majority of people, I would advise 2 to 3 times per week. The reason being is that it is more achievable for people to fit into the available time they do have. If you’re coming from a place of lacking motivation and discipline. Then say going from no exercise to 2 workouts per week is a lot more achievable.
There are other aspects to consider when exercising. The amount of exercise you will recover from. Do you think you recover from daily workouts? When you work out, you’re applying stress to your body. So what happens, when you apply too much stress to the body is it can have a detrimental effect on how you feel. Because you’re not giving your body enough time to rest. This is important if you would like your body to change shape when you’re losing weight.
What if you want to exercise more often?
So what I would suggest is that if either you think you need to or want to exercise every day. Do some gentle movement, which is by doing some walking. I would always advise getting outside as often as possible when you’re getting some movement. Because simply getting away from your desk and away from screens. Out into nature is amazing for our health, it makes us feel better. It can clear your head and may get you to focus away from work, and anything that may be playing on your mind. Being in nature can make your mind be there in the present.
In conclusion, there are many reasons to get as physically active as possible. But it needs to fit what is going to be realistic for you to achieve at that moment in time. What will allow you to rest and recover and allow to put a good amount of effort in without feeling tired.
