Is it really bad to work out every day of the week? I've found that on days i take a break from exercising are the days i freak out and binge at night(today being the perfect example). The last 3 days I've done Jillian Michael's Banish Fat, Boost Metabolism which is 40 minutes long. Can i keep that up 7 days a week and not hurt my weightloss efforts??

Exercise is great to do every day. The only thing you want to watch out for is overusing the same muscles. Some activities which use the same muscles, like crunches and push ups can be done every day, because the breakdown in the muscle is small enough to heal by the next day. Serious heavy weight training should only be done 2 to 3 days a week because there is enough breakdown in muscle fibers that the muscles need at least 48 hours to heal and actually become stronger.

I wonder about things like running because it's the same muscles in the same plane all the time. Perhaps mixing in biking, or swimming, or an a elliptical or something would be good to switch it up a bit, but that's just my own opinion. I do not know how "real runners" train. I think to them, a 3 or 4 mile run (the equivalent to your 4o min dvd) is like a walk in the park to them, and something they would probably do every day. They would most likely not do the long training runs every day. Again, speaking from stuff I've read and thoughts I've accumulated, but not personal experience.

Lastly, there's how in shape you are and the intensity of the workout. No one would claim we shouldn't go for a walk every day. That's low intensity. No one would probably say we shouldn't dance around our house every day while cleaning or doing laundry, but that could easily be medium intensity. Your JM DVD is most likely high intensity. I'm not familiar with that exact one. If she works certain muscle groups really hard, then perhaps daily isn't the way to go. Perhaps alternate with a few other DVD's as well. But as far as intense aerobic exercise, daily is great!

I'm reading a book right now called Younger Next Year (there's also a Younger Next Year for Women) and the authors promote working up to an hour of aerobics exercise (where you really sweat) every day for the rest of your life to help keep us ahead of aging curve. It's worth a look at the book since you are interested in exercise to a great degree, but the author is not the friendliest. He is a "just suck it up and do it" kind of guy.

I have been struggling with this both tonight and last night. I went to the gym for five days in a row and then I think I got burnt out or at least was just exhausted last night. Tonight...well, I really have no excuse. I'm heading back tomorrow, but yeah. I was wondering the same question about doing too much. I have felt horribly depressed and discouraged because I didn't workout yesterday and today despite the fact that I stayed within my calorie intake range and supposedly with as much weight as I have to lose, I should be fine. I still feel awful for not going to the gym. This doesn't really answer your question, but I am here to say you're not alone with this feeling.

I do 5-6 days a week with a mandatory rest day from vigorous exercise. It helps me from getting bored and/or burnt out. I also found that my exercise sessions for the rest of the week after my rest day are much better and I am more focused/intense. I tried 7 days a week and after 10 days, I was sore and feeling like it was a chore.

However, I still move around on my rest day, I just don't do a regimented exercise activity.

There are a lot of people here who go all 7 days and they love it. I think it depends on your exercise personality.

I've found this as well. I exercise 6 days a week for 1-2 hours at a time. I do a mix of different types of exercises, some high intensity (like my Spin class today) and some moderate intensity (like walking on my treadmill for 2 hours at 3.0 ----I do work while I'm doing this because I have a tread desk). However, on Sundays, I don't do any formal exercise (although I do the usual light housekeeping---washing dishes, folding laundry, making beds, etc.).

To the OP, I don't know the health implications of working out every day, but for me, I do like having that one day of rest. I think it's a nice mental and physical break.

I don't think it's necessarily bad to exercise every day, but I would make sure that you're doing different things every day so that your body gets rest. I've been doing 6 or 7 day workout weeks, but if I have that 7th day it's always something different than what I was doing the previous days. Muscles need rest.

Even if just workout 6 days I'm hardly at rest on my rest day. I'm always up, walking around, etc. because of work (I'm a teacher). Yet sometimes I feel I really need that one day away from my strenuous workouts.

i do what for me is high intensity exercise, running on a treadmill...i exercise as many days as i can, but it's never 7 days a week...there's always things that come up, such as meetings, board of director stuff, kid things, appointments etc...and when those come up, i use it as my rest day...ive never gone longer than 4 days without running since last september, and those 4 days happened once when i traveled for a funeral and once with a super-bad bout of ear infection (took 4 rounds of meds to clear it up)

i dont plan on rest days, but they occur naturally for me between work and family...like the morning grandma was medivaced out and i was at the hospital, not the gym, etc...and when i DREAM of being too sore to move (which i have) i take that as a sign that my body needs a day of rest even if i dont necessarily feel it

I was wondering about this, too. I've exercised 4 days in a row so far, and I had planned to have 2 days break after the 5th day, but don't know if I can let myself. I'm kind of on a roll. I've been doing the exercise bike and Walk Away the Pounds. I'm not sure what else to throw in there to mix it up. Maybe lifting weights? Once the snow melts here, I want to try couch25k. I was supposed to start it tomorrow but there's snow EVERYWHERE and I don't think it will be off the road by tomorrow.

I have a very strict but variable regime - I exercise for five days in one week, then four days in next week and three days in the last week. Then again five days etc.

By doing it like this you give your body chance to regenerate and you don't get out of the rhythm.

I think it's what your body can tolerate - I was doing 5 - 6 days a week but got a little burnt out - so now I alternate - I do heavy bag kickboxing 2 - 3 days a week, and run 1 -2 days a week as, for the most part, they work different body parts. I like giving myself a day to recover b/c I always feel smaller, like my muscles have re-settled haha. I do think it's important to alternate workouts -the Jillian video you mentioned is mostly cardio so I think that's fine, but you wouldn't want to do her No More Trouble Zones dvd every day b/c it involves lots of weights/lifting and it might be over-working the muscles.