The Importance of Rest

I was very glad yesterday was a rest day, as I woke up feeling quite stiff and sore from my efforts on Saturday. My husband was still recovering from a very nasty cold which had kept him in bed all week, so we slept in, had a leisurely breakfast, caught up on a couple of TV shows we had recorded . . . and managed to not leave the house all day. A proper restful Sunday!

Oddly enough, having rest days is just as important as the actual exercise when you are trying to improve your fitness and lose weight. The reason is that exercise itself does not grow your muscles or make you fitter – it actually damages your muscles. It is when your body repairs this damage and decides to add just a bit more muscle to prevent further damage (whether it’s your leg muscles or your heart) that you improve your muscle tone and get fitter. In order to do these repairs your body needs good food and enough rest time to get the job done. That’s why you should avoid exercising the same muscle groups on consecutive days, and should space harder workouts with easier ones. You also need more sleep, for two reasons: First this is a prime muscle repair time as your body doesn’t have to focus on doing anything else. Second, while you sleep the body produces a hormone called leptin, which is responsible for telling your brain when you are full. If you are sleep deprived, there is less leptin in your system so you have a harder time knowing when you are full and are more likely to feel hungry and overeat. 

So as part of my training plan I try to have two rest days a week and to get at least 8 hours of sleep per night. Not only does this appear to be working on the weight loss front, but I have managed to avoid my husband’s cold (so far anyway)!

The Score:

Calories:	Protein:	Carbs:	Fat:	Alcohol:	Fibre:
1589.18	96.04g	187.13g	49.96g	0	31.70g
	24%	47%	28%
Calories burned through exercise:		Rest Day

What I ate:

Time	Item	Amount
10:15	Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 each
	Cold water	200mL
	Whole Scrambled egg with 2 egg whites	3 eggs
	Heinz Beanz, reduced sugar and salt	185g
	Raw tomato	85g
	Mushrooms	110g
	in butter	5g
	Sainsbury's pure squeezed orange juice	200mL
11:00	Black tea	500mL
12:15	Raspberry and Echinacea tea	250mL
13:45	Leon's Chicken, Pumpkin and Borlotti bean stew	298g
	with extra roasted pumpkin	75g
	Alpro Soya Original	200mL
	Sainsbury's Freefrom iced rich fruit cake slice	1 slice
17:15	Seedless Red Grapes	100g
	Butterkist salted microwave popcorn	25g popped
	M&S Dried fruit, nuts and seeds	25g
16:15	Blackcurrant, vanilla and ginseng tea	250mL
20:00	Homemade chilli	250g
	Merchant Gourmet tinned puy lentils	100g
21:45	Ellactiva Chocolate Calcium Chew	1 chew
	500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 pill
	Camomile, honey and vanilla tea	250mL

Plus 500 to 1500mL of cold water sipped from a water bottle throughout the day.