Yes…it’s possible! The term “addiction” give us images of people in dark rooms, listening to bad music and sticking needles in their arms, but many addicts can be found in the gym or on the local school track, getting in the same way addictive a fix. In fact, the positive nature of the term “healthy” makes health addiction all the more alluring. Regardless of the positive media, health addicts did as much damage to their families and lives as any kind of addict. In the following paragraphs, we’ll look under the surface of health addiction and find a path to recovery.

How Can Something SO EXCELLENT Be Bad? In our modern Western culture, those willing to pay the purchase price for fitness should be applauded. You can find just so many temptations to accomplish otherwise. Exercise is mainly boring, painful and smelly, so those that endure it for about an hour, 3-5 days weekly, have achieved an even of discipline most only imagine.

Health and fitness addiction isn’t about health or fitness…it’s about a compulsion to use healthy activities to fill a void we see in ourselves. Addicts are compelled, not disciplined. The addictive chemicals involved with exercise are quite similar as those in sex and porn addiction. This may explain why many people have problems with both sexual addictions and health addictions.

Types Of Health And Fitness Addiction: These are addictions to the activities of health and fitness, as opposed to the TV, Internet and shopping addictions which could involve health themes. Health and fitness addictions are compulsions to activate in “healthy” activities, like exercise, dieting, etc. In fact, anorexia and bulimia nervosa have both been described as severe health addictions. Two key outward indications of these mental disorders are exercise and dietary control to a compulsive and excessive extreme. The specific exercise or diet program doesn’t matter. It’s an addiction once you feel compelled to accomplish it.

How Do I Know I’m Addicted? We addicts don’t often recognize addiction because a common symptom of addiction is denial, which is even better to have about health. That’s why it’s easier to find out from a friend or cherished one if you have an issue of this type. For health addiction involving eating, see Anorexia Nervosa Quiz. Below are a few things to watch out for concerning fitness exercise addiction:

1. Do you regularly spend more than 8 hours weekly exercising and may be the time you spend increasing?

2. Does your exercise schedule hinder normal family activities, home or work responsibilities?

3. Do friends or family complain about the time or money you spend on fitness?

4. Have you wondered if you’re being too compulsive about your fitness routine?

5. Have you lied to your family, friends, or employers about the time you may spend in fitness activities?

6. Do you often see fitness as a way to gain acceptance or praise from others?

7. Have you ever pushed so difficult in your fitness routine you hurt yourself?

If you answered yes to these questions, you should consider yourself at risk of addiction. In the event that you answered yes to 3 or more, you’re probably addicted.

How Do I GET OVER Health And Fitness Addiction? That is the effect of a negative self-image, like any other addiction. Instead of alcohol, you use exercise to fill a void you are feeling in yourself. Since the relief produced by exercise is temporary and you become conditioned, you will need regular increases in the experience to produce the same relief. Unlike alcohol, some fitness activity is necessary for health, so, you can’t just quit. Instead, we have to hold ourselves to no more than an hour a day, 3-5 days a week.

Spend the rest of the time you used to exercise going to AA or other addiction meetings and engaging in self-development activities. You could read, go back to school, join a volunteer group. You could take up a hobby, like gardening or building model airplanes. To help in building yourself up, avoid negative mental inputs, just like the news, drama, negative, insulting friends. Replace people that have good music or reading or alternative activities that build you up. Push all the negative, self-defeating, limiting thoughts out of your mind with positive, uplifting, encouraging thoughts.

Because you can find risks that health and fitness addiction could become full-blown anorexia, if you try to fail to get a handle on your addiction, please see a medical expert. Sometimes medical and psychological therapy can prevent a far more serious condition from developing, and invite you the mental energies you must get control of yourself.

Health and fitness addiction could be just as severe as any other addiction. . It can imprison us into destructive, compulsive activities. We are able to place our families, our careers, even, ironically, our health at risk through dependence on exercise and other fitness activities. The good news is, there is expect anyone willing to live in and work on recovery.