Rest and Recovery

I have had penalty of time this week to think about rest and recovery. This is my 6th day without exercise and I think I am actually having withdrawal symptoms. An addiction specialist might think I am actually physically withdrawing from an unknown substance. I know my body needs the rest from a summer of overtraining (and having part of it forcibly removed on Tuesday) so why is this so hard? I have to keep telling myself what I tell all of you… it is all about balance.

Physical exercise is a stress to your body. Once you adapt to a given stress, you require additional stress to continue to make progress. Gradual increases in work over a period of time will give you the desired results. However, there is a limit to how much stress the body can tolerate before it breaks down and your risks of injury increases. Doing too much work too quickly will result in injury or muscle damage. Recovery time is important because this is the time that the body adapts to the stress of exercise. Recovery also allows the body to replenish energy and allows tissue to repair itself. Without it, the body will continue to breakdown.

I have to keep reminding myself that while I think my body is breaking down from lack of exercise, it is actually healing itself. I have 8 more days of healing!
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Today's Workout: None
Today's Confession: I have not had solid food in a week so I think everything I eat would make a nutritionist cry.