By Becky MacGregor, guest blogger
I use a phrase in training called “The Point of No Return.” It means that at a certain stage in someone’s movement pattern, they reach a point to which the likelihood of injury goes up yet the return for muscle function and improvement goes down.
There are physical points of no return….
Exercising without hydrating or eating properly
Going too hard too soon before your body has had time to adapt to proper load progression
Stressing your joints with improper form or too much weight
Not addressing chronic disease soon enough so that your body can’t reverse the negative effects without a TON of medication
There are mental points of no return…
“I’ve exercised and eaten well this week so I deserve this 3,000 calorie binge”
Eating past the point of satisfaction and going for that stuffed feeling – The idea that you have to clean your plate.
“I’m frustrated, I’m stressed, I’m angry, I’m bored”….Stress and emotional overeating
Excuses like: “I can’t make it to class so I can’t do anything at all,” “I don’t have the time,” “I’m too busy,” “I’m too tired to exercise.”
These are attitudes and behaviors that put you in the position that when the damage is done, it’s done, and you can’t go back.
You can’t go back but you can learn from it moving forward…
You can recognize the feeling when you start to push too hard, when you haven’t hydrated enough, when you start to eat more than you should, when you reach for the stress-snack, when you reach for that food you KNOW you tend to binge on— Know what it is – Call it out (call yourself out) and DON’T GO THERE.
Don’t buy the foods that are your weakness, throw them away. Stop buying foods you say your kids or family HAVE to have (cookies, chips) yet you tend to binge on. You can recognize when you are giving yourself an exercise excuse and work around it. There are many ways busy people can exercise.
The point is …the point of no return for most people is in their mind first. It controls the action second.
You can learn to stop it before it goes too far. From a physical and mental perspective, I’ve seen this point of no return in people in every single example I listed above. I hate seeing people feel shame for overeating or someone get depressed from a preventable injury and now they are “out” for months. I hate seeing people suffer in hospital beds as their body systematically shuts down and there is not an antibiotic or drug in the world that can help them because they just got to the point of no return.
You don’t want it to be you in any of those examples, your family doesn’t want that for you…I don’t want that to be you…Think ahead, think positive and start taking better care of yourself.
