Social media readily delivers sooo much information on, well, pretty much anything and everything! This is great in many different ways. However, the format doesn't truly allow for long-form, nuanced information.
I know we all have packed lives with limited time to devote to more conversation and context, but when it comes to health, things aren't super clear-cut, so the little things do matter. There are so many health, wellness, and fitness accounts online. It can be difficult to discern who to trust and follow, especially since scientific research can certainly be taken out of context and cherry picked. The best practice is to take things with a grain of salt. Anyone who is super rigid in their approach is usually a no-no for me.
There are a lot of people discouraging the public from partaking in high-intensity exercise. This is based on a natural physiological response that's been interpreted erroneously. There are definitely times where taking exercise down a notch or keeping things to a bare-minimum, especially if your healthcare team has advised you to do so, is warranted.
For most of us, though, there are great benefits to be reaped from high-intensity exercise.
The guidelines for adults in Canada are:
Cortisol, your stress hormone, gets a bad rap. However, you need cortisol for, well, life!
It's what gets you going in the morning, it's an important part of your immune function, it's crucial for your emotional regulation, and it's an important part of you adapting to exercise.
The very natural physiological adaptation response to exercise as a result of stress/stimulus is what helps us get stronger/faster/etc. and improves our cardiometabolic health (think of your lungs, blood vessels, heart, lymphatic system, liver, blood sugar regulation, etc.)
The biggest problems we face in the female hormone health-exercise-cortisol triad (a name I'm making up) are:
I see it all the time in my practice: when we diversify exercise, build in rest days, work on stress (as much as we can, I suppose), and add more fuel, people feel better.
Yes, hormones are complex and there's a lot of interplay, but the basics pretty much always apply.
So, work on eating enough to feel well and to fuel your workouts, build in adequate rest and recovery days, diversify your exercise type/volume/frequency so that it's not just high intensity, and work on sleep and stress. These are the factors will make all the difference.
Maybe you need some help healing your relationship with food and your body too. This is something I see over and over again. I'm not going to say that any of this is easy. Health and life are hard work. Exercising is hard, especially if you're just getting started or restarted.
BUT it is the one thing you can do for yourself. It has benefits for:
So, get moving, dear reader. Something is better than nothing at all. 2 minutes is better than zero... one step at a time.
The way to get better at exercising and exercising regularly is to actually exercise. You can do hard things... you have to prioritize them, though (remember: you can't prioritize ALL the things!).
