Whenever I bite the bullet and take a rest day I feel like crap all day long. I don’t know if my mind knows I don’t plan to work out so it gets depressed or what is happening. I find that if I know I’m not working out my whole day is out of whack. I’ll let my nutritional plan go to the pooper, and eat chinese for lunch or something because I know that I won’t have to worry about it coming up, or working its way out during my ride.
Anyone else feel like crap and eat garbage on their rest days?
I would say its 90% mental. lets say you have an afternoon workout at around 3. A rest day is exactly like every other day, until 3, when you skip the workout. Thus, for most of the time youre feeling like crap, your day isnt any different than a training day, except you know that later on, you will skip a workout. I say, calm down and realize that rest day (if your training loads are high), will do more good than a 100 mile ride.
I may be wrong, but it sounds like you’re talking about forced rest days, rather than planned rest days. On planned rest days, I do just fine, and usually either read or do some cleaning up around the house during the time I would be working out. It took me a while to get to a place where I could plan a rest day and actually rest. I eat about the same, because my body needs the fuel/energy to heal itself.
On forced rest days, whether due to illness or to injury, I generally feel mentally depressed and get down on myself because I think I’m blowing “the plan.” The reality is that recovering from an injury or illness is probalby more important the training, but that is not an easy mindset to achieve.
Finally, your eating habits are a matter of discipline. It sounds like you’re doing a classic “comfort food” sabotage to yourself. You’ve written off the day, you’re feeling down, so you just compound it by eating whatever junk you see.
Anyway, that’s what I’m thinking, for whatever it’s worth.
I’ve learned that for myself I CAN train everyday and i used to do this and it would beat my body way down. Now, im forcing myself to take way more rest than i thought necessary before, and it is doing more good than harm. You have to figure out what your body needs, with me, if i train really really hard it takes a really really long time to recover. And now, im doing things in a more micro manner. Small level of overexertion coupled with a short recovery and so on and so on.
hope i helped in some way
jeremyb
I get lethargic and even grumpy on my rest days. I think for me it is a matter of routine. If I go to work without a morning workout I am grumpy and not very motivated.
When I take a Sunday off I just become a couch potato and am not so grumpy, just slothful.
A morning workout is a ritual in my Tri-religion; I feel like a heathen without it.