To rest or not to rest??

[Bellamoltisanti]

How often do people have rest days?? If I have one I struggle on the following day. It's hard for me to find momentum.

[Odyssey13]

@Bellamoltisanti  Read this thread where a few people discussed their thoughts on resting. click to read

Welcome to the forums.

[loveabull]

As others have said if you're really hurtin' give yourself a day to rest the part of you that's painful. But really the best bet is to have days when you push yourself, days when you're just moderately active in general and maybe a few days in the week when just for fun you really amp your activity. Depends on your idea of a rest day too, if it involves complete inactivity and a case of chips, that's going to be hard to bounce back from.

[KC12]

I rest 2 or 3 days a week.

I find that having a schedule helps me. I block out the same time everyday to work out. On my rest days, that time is spent stretching, but I still get dressed and set aside the time.

[Heybales]

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@Bellamoltisanti wrote:
How often do people have rest days?? If I have one I struggle on the following day. It's hard for me to find momentum.

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What exactly are you doing, for how long, and how often?

Duration, frequency, and intensity define workouts really.

All 3 low could be done every day. Though if you never increase intensity to what you could do, you'll soon lose that.

It's why weight lifting with same muscles needs rest.

But walking - unless 4-8 hr sessions - eh, likely not.

[Maxit]

I walk  4-5 miles every day - not intervals, just moving along.  If I am lifting, it's usually a Monday-Weds-Friday routine, and on one or two of those days I include interval training when I am at the gym.

[Bellamoltisanti]

I've been doing 1hr cardio 6 days a week plus strength training at least 4 times a week. I also spend most my day chasing after a 1 & 2 year old. Just feeling frustrated at I'm 2kg from goal weight and it won't shift at all. My diet is always pretty good, not much processed and drink plenty of water. Do people find rest days help with their weight loss or hinder it?

[Maxit]

It helps, in my experience, if nothing else because water retention from sore muscles dissipates.  Those last few pounds/kilos seem to go slow.

[Heybales]

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@Bellamoltisanti wrote:
I've been doing 1hr cardio 6 days a week plus strength training at least 4 times a week. I also spend most my day chasing after a 1 & 2 year old. Just feeling frustrated at I'm 2kg from goal weight and it won't shift at all. My diet is always pretty good, not much processed and drink plenty of water. Do people find rest days help with their weight loss or hinder it?

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With that little left to lose, a combo of stresses can easily be causing this to be more of a fight then it needs to be.

For instance, I sure hope you have a reasonable weight loss goal of 1/2 lb weekly, or daily 250 cal deficit.

That's reasonable for amount to lose to healthy weight.

Do you log that strength training? Because of course Fitbit is going to see few to any steps for all that hard work and assign little extra calories. You could be causing extra stress by increasing an already bad deficit more.

Is your cardio walking or running level? If pushing stroller with kids or doing hills, then Fitbit is underestimating again your calorie burn - you are increasing deficit again.

If that is true that the workouts are not getting manually logged, combined with a bigger deficit than 250 cal - you are just causing a bunch of stress on your body.

Body already recovers slower from good workouts when in a diet, even bigger diet, worse effect. Too much exercise unrecovered is just yet another stress on your body.

So depends on the answers to those questions as to how you do things, but I'll bet backing off a bit would do wonders with a reasonable deficit.

Those last few pounds can fly off if you get to them with a healthy body with full burning metabolism.

[Dennis13k]

Don't underestimate good sleep pattern too. I know that can be hard with a young offspring. But, without adequate sleep and rest, body can't repair itself properly to burn off what's needed

[Shlomo-T]

I refrain from wearing my fitbit one day each week (Saturday - Shabbat).  I have cultural-religious reasons, but I think anyone of any heritage or background can benefit from taking one day (of your choosing) off per week from high-tech stuff -- a vacation from our gadgets.  The fitbit is a fantastic motivating device, and for six days a week I enjoy challenging myself and others with it.  It helps me and my fitbit friends stay active and healthy.  But there is a danger of becoming obsessed with, and enslaved to, that little device we dutifully strap on first thing each morning (and for some, keep on 24 hours).  Even though I'm not wearing the fitbit, I do a lot of walking on Saturdays, none of which is tracked, but those are my "own" steps -- a weekly break from challenges, goals, and competition.  On Sundays, I put the fitbit back on and am energized and motivated to take on another week of rising to the challenge.