I find in the past two years I don't recover from workouts as I once did, and believing I was just lazy and "exercise is energizing" I stepped it up to six workouts a week, becoming, cumulatively, so achy and exhausted I lived on Tylenols and coffee, lost any ambition and couldn't think straight. I cut workouts back to two per week, tried to sleep more. Still enough tiredness and pain to fog my brain, with even the gentlest exertions! "Eat more protein," they said, so I did. No change. All relevant tests turn up negative. There is naught to do but quit, at least until I've recovered.
This happened before; I thought it was mental stress only. It took two months of full-time lying on the carpet to recover. Then I returned to exercising. Again, depletion. Last summer was without exercise except for targeted physical therapy. I got slenderer! My energy returned -- I even felt creative! Then I began exercising again: within a few months, crippling depletion.
Is it possible that after 40 years there is an end to exercise -- for me? I've been working out and belonging to gyms since I was 24: weights, hiking, treadmill, ballet, biking (okay, only 50 miles max), raking, pruning, running (time was when the bones could take it), yoga, Pilates, aerobics, tae kwon do, spinning, the works. Didn't hate it at all! Would love to go back to ballet barre and yoga classes! Others 20 years older than myself exercise for six classes per week and feel fine.
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