Do you exercise too much?

Exercise: Find the middle ground
Modern-day exercise habits tend to fall to extremes. The majority of people are either underexercisers or overexercisers, and neither side is accessing a moderate middle ground where exercise is truly helping them, not hindering them. There is a lot of misinformation out there. For one thing, it's been ingrained in us for years that more pain will equal more gain, and that simply by doing a harder, more exhausting workout, we will be more fit. That is not the case. Similarly, like fad diets and food trends, new exercise trends come along at a steady clip, always promising better and faster results. Exercise, the thing that is supposed to provide relief and fun, can sometimes seem like one more thing to keep up with. For the purpose of this program, you're going to slow down, tune out all those external messages for a few weeks, and tune in to a more reliable source of information: yourself.

There's a real danger in the more-is-more approach. Did you know that intense cardio activities actually cause stress on the body? They cause a catabolic reaction, meaning they destroy tissue. The body goes into alert-mode and urgently looks for energy. If it doesn't find it immediately from food, the energy will get drawn from the most easily available sources like muscles and organs (rather than the harder-to-get fat deposits). If your life already has its share of stress, including a mediocre diet and too little sleep, or if your health is compromised in any way to begin with, this new set of stresses will tip you way out of balance. Sickness and injury, as well as reduced endurance and lack of strength, will be far more likely. Overtraining can also trigger emotional responses like irritability, anxiety, and sensitivity to criticism (all things that you might, ironically, decide are causes or not working out enough). New mothers who take on hard exercise too quickly can develop postnatal depression.

If, on the other hand, you are nourished, rested and calm to begin with, the stress from intense cardio workouts might be easier to absorb and you might love them. But it's wise to be conscious that you may unwittingly be adding much more stress to your life by doing the very thing you're hoping will destress you. The endorphin rush that comes with high cardio can feel great, but did you realize it's also a sign that you have just pushed your body into emergency fight-or-flight mode? When you are in that state, all nonurgent bodily functions get shut down, like digestion and reproductive functions. That's why chronic overexercising can throw off the entire balance of your body.

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Excerpted from Mariel Hemingway's Healthy Living from the Inside Out by Mariel Hemingway. Copyright 2007 by Mariel Hemingway. Excerpted with permission by HarperCollins. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced without permission in writing from the publisher.