Exercise Intensity vs. Stress on the Body

Truer words were never spoken, JMHiggs

Another new discovery for me....I seem to have some gluten intolerance. Not getting sick or a full allergy, but my health coach was telling me that sometimes, the body craves what is really bad for it, and if you have a gluten intolerance, your body will do crazy stuff. I have found that my energy for cardio is so much stronger and I'm not trying to talk myself into another 5 minutes - I'm surprising myself and feeling like I can go another 5 and see how I feel! It's not nearly as restrictive as I had thought, and since I'm already eating pretty healthy, I only had to make a few substitutions, and it's really made a difference.

It's so interesting to me to see everyone's responses on here - to have the same diagnosis and such different needs still blows my mind, and it proves that we can't all be lumped together and we are all still very much individuals. My health coach has been giving me lots of suggestions, and for the first time, I'm not frustrated when something doesn't work. This is the first time, too, that I have stopped beating myself up for not making progress because I finally understand that there's so much more to this than just calories in and out, hard work, and restricting everything I do to no avail. I appreciate everyone's info on here, because with this diagnosis, things that work now might not work as my body changes, and I keep all of this in the back of my mind!

Pounds lost: 7.0

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My advice is to listen to your body and weigh yourself every morning so you get 'feedback' from your body on what works and what doesn't. That's pretty much how I discovered that vigorous exercise, much as I love the challenge, doesn't seem to do me much good and walking is surprisingly effective for me.

Good luck and hang in there.

Are you tracking consistently every day? That's huge. If so, are you eating enough? You have to be sure to set exercise goals in that section or else your calories will not adjust for you and you may be eating too little, especially if you are exercising intensely. Otherwise, keeping it up and waiting is always a good idea. Could be muscle + water retention that will calm down in a week or two. Just some thoughts!



-Allison

current weight: 241.2

241.2 217.15 193.1 169.05

145

Wow!!! I'm glad I read this cause I was ready to cry. I joined a week and a bit ago, but have been trying to get in some serious exercise for a little over 2 weeks. I actually like vigorous exercise when i can do it, though with a toddler its not always easy.

Anyway I've been tracking my food and doing pretty good with it and working out as i've said and i've GAINED 5 lbs in 2 weeks *cries*

This has happened to me in the past as well, but this time my husband can see and verify that i've eaten good and exercised being as i need him to watch DD so i can get the exercise in!!!

So other then trying to slow my breath and heart rate and doing more walking and less high intensity workouts what would you all suggest to me????

I found an article to back this up - http://www.south-florida-personal-trainer.
com/stress.html

I'm actually surprised... but this would explain why double workouts didn't seem to work for me at all.

-Allison

current weight: 241.2

241.2 217.15 193.1 169.05

145

Thank you very very much for sharing that information. I have come to the conclusion personally that gentle exercise seems to work better for me losing weight. Rather ridiculous, but I lose faster when I do a half hour walk each day rather than an hour on a cross-trainer or a couple of hours weight training and cardio at the gym. Bizarre. Thanks cortisol.

I'll give your advice a go on the cross trainer and let you know what happens. Usually when I do 20 minutes or more, I put on half a kilo the next day, so I'll be able to tell pretty quickly.

Again, thanks so much for the advice.

I will have to pay more attention to my breathing. Thanks for the info!

Great info!

Pounds lost: 97.0

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Thank you for that information.

Hello! I just wanted to share some info I learned yesterday about exercising and pushing your body to work harder. I had read a lot of conflicting info - some say that you have to work out so much harder with PCOS to get any results, but others say that stressing your body that much raises your cortisol levels, which defeats the purpose because we tend to have higher levels anyway and this signals your body to go into protective mode and not burn off the fat. I talked to my new trainer yesterday about this, and he said that a lot of it comes down to breathing and helping your heart rate stay lower instead of jumping up and staying there. He told me to work on some interval training and to really concentrate on deeper, slower breathing while I'm on the elliptical. He said that it will help to lower my resting heart rate and it will keep it from jumping up so high while I'm really working hard. This will take stress off of my body without reducing the intensity of the workout.

To go along with that, I also read an article that said that breathing in through your nose allows you to take deeper breaths, and the air actually passes over an area that is connected with soothing centers in your brain, which has a calming effect on your system. Breathing through your mouth bypasses all of that. When I work out really hard, it's hard not to pant like a dog through my mouth!

I don't know if anyone else has had this problem, but when I was doing cardio after my training session with him, I focused on that so much more, and I could definitely tell a difference. I could also go for so much longer without trying to convince myself that another minute or two would be worth it! Breathing in through my nose also made me concentrate more on controlling my breathing because it's harder to do, so I think that was helpful as well.

Pounds lost: 7.0

0 18.75 37.5 56.25

75