Compulsive Exercise Therapy
See Overexercise treatment FAQs here.
Exercise is taking over your life.
Your exercise routines are the focal point of your day, and invades your thoughts frequently. You can’t seem to stop working out even when you’re exhausted, sick, or injured. You feel anxiety, guilt, or panic if you can’t exercise as planned.
Compulsive Exercise, or any type of disordered eating issue, can make you feel both invincible and worthless, and occurs across all body sizes.
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Compulsive Exercise is a Complex Issue
Your workouts likely interfere with other important aspects of your life, your relationships, your social life, or having energy for other important things in your day. You may also use exercise to compensate for eating too much or “bad” foods, and your workouts seem to give you permission to eat.
Many people who engage in overexercise also use it as a primary way of coping with anxiety, stress, and uncomfortable emotions. It might feel scary to miss a workout if it’s your only way to deal with stress! You may also keep exercising even though you know you shouldn’t, and rest or inactivity can feel extremely uncomfortable, even intolerable.
Contributing Factors in Compulsive Exercise and Eating Disorders
Compulsive exercise issues commonly occur within an eating disorder. Overexercise is often applauded in diet and fitness culture, and seen as the “answer” to all of your problems. Further complicating your struggle with exercise is the incessant cultural pressure to be thin and attractive based upon narrow and oppressive beauty standards. These beauty and fitness standards are ubiquitous and convince all of us that if we want love, care, and respect in this world, we must conform (read: be fit). Body image distress can lead to compulsive exercise and eating disorders, and compliments about weight loss or physique changes reinforce them.
On top of all of this, we can imagine that someone in your family also struggles with food, body image, and exercise. Eating disorders have a strong genetic component and tend to run in families. If you grew up in an environment of restrictive eating, body shame, and overexercise, you are more likely to struggle in these ways as an adult, especially if you have the genetic predisposition. We’re not here to blame your family, even though they may have accidentally contributed to the development of your eating disorder. Your parents’ parents likely passed these things down as well, and so goes the cyclical nature of trans-generational food and body image issues. That is, until someone finally heals it. We hope that person is you.
Many People Struggle with Overexercise and Disordered Eating
Regardless of where you are in the process of recovery, you deserve compassion, to be heard, and specialized help. Struggling with compulsive exercise and/or an eating disorder does not mean that you are deficient in any way, and you are certainly not alone. Read more about compulsive exercise in eating disorders here.
An estimated 3% of gym members have a destructive relationship with exercise. And, some studies have found that number may be even higher, including a 2008 Paris study that found that up to 42% of gym members have a harmful relationship with exercise.
Exercise Bulimia
Compulsive exercise is a treatable mental and physical disorder that affects people of every age, sex, ethnicity, gender, race, and socioeconomic group. Overexercise is not currently a stand-alone diagnosis in the DSM-V, however exercise compulsion is frequently a symptom of an eating disorder. This particular struggle is also sometimes referred to Exercise Bulimia.
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Let Us Help
With the help of a skilled, specialized therapist and/or dietitian, you can develop the insight and compassionate self-care needed to sustain the long journey of healing. We can provide the support you need:
You will receive a personalized treatment plan that is highly specific and aligned with your unique needs and goals
Tools and skills to manage and diminish eating disorder behaviors
Support in developing insight and understanding in your relationships with food and your body, and about yourself in general
Education about the science behind eating disorders and trauma
Help learning to regulate and soothe your intense emotions
Coping skills to advocate for yourself, especially when it comes to difficult relationships and diet culture
Nutrition support, education, and guidance
Tools and guidance in dismantling the restrictive food rules and obsessions that take over your life
A meal plan, if necessary, with a specialized Registered Dietitian
Inspiration, motivation, and accountability
So much love and compassion
See eating disorder treatment FAQs here
Compulsive Exercise Treatment Can Repair Your Relationship With Your Body
Overexercise in eating disorders is a subspecialty at Austin Center for Eating Disorders (ACED). We understand how important exercise is to you, and how scary it is to image changing it. At the same time, your exercise behaviors are likely causing you harm physically, socially, and mentally, and you’re trapped between these two truths: you need exercise to feel safe and it’s hurting you.
Therapy for overexercise and/or an eating disorder can provide you with the support you need to learn to tolerate stillness and emotional distress, without needing to workout. We can guide you to develop insight into compulsive exercise behaviors to better understand how they help you, and how they harm you. We can discuss alternate ways of coping, and experiment with small changes in your exercise routine.
Psychotherapy is an extremely effective method to repair your relationship with exercise and your body. We want to help you get relief from the incessant counting, tracking, measuring, obsessive planning, rigidity, and mental obsession that comes with compulsive exercise. The mental and psychological aspects of compulsive exercise can be just as painful and debilitating as the behaviors themselves.
Our Collaborative Approach Toward Eating Disorder Recovery
Depending on your symptoms and needs, we will refer you to a registered dietician and/or therapist specializing in eating disorders to assist us on our journey together. Working with a specialized dietitian can be very important, and we will collaborate to make sure that you are getting the best care possible.
We will also refer you to a specialized medical doctor to check in about your physical health. Again, we want to do our best make sure that you have everything you need to recover from your eating disorder.
Another option and recommendation we’ll likely provide is to join a therapy group that focuses on eating disorder recovery, so that you can connect with others who share your goals and struggles.
We’ll also look for other possible mental health concerns, such as anxiety, depression, or trauma, that may be complicating or intensifying your need to cope using compulsive exercise behaviors.
We utilize a number of therapeutic modalities to aid in your unique recovery process:
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Family Based Therapy (FBT)
Emotion Focused Family Therapy (EFFT)
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Psychodynamic Theory
Feminist Theory
Health at Every Size® and Intuitive Eating
Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Parts Work
Relational Cultural Theory
Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT)
Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)
We Cherish Your Autonomy
You and you alone (given that you are an adult) are in charge of your body. You make decisions based upon what you believe is best for you. We will have plenty of recommendations (see above) to aid your recovery process, and if your symptoms are more severe, we may be more directive in nature. However, you are always free to agree or disagree, to come and go as you please, and do what you believe is the best thing for you.
We believe that you must make your own decisions to get the most out of therapy, and we support you in doing so. We cannot make you do anything, and you simply will not change unless you want to. We unconditionally accept you for who you are, right now.
You may be considering Compulsive Exercise Treatment but still have some questions or concerns…
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We wholeheartedly believe in and practice body autonomy, which means that you are in charge of your body and your life. You decide how and what changes you’d like to implement, and we will be a guide towards healing. Of course, we will make recommendations, but it is entirely up to you what to do with them, and we will discuss your needs, feelings, and ideas together. Exercise can be a wonderful, empowering, and health-restoring aspect of treatment, and we don’t want to take this away from you. The goal is to heal your relationship with exercise so that it can become a force of healing, fun, and connection, rather that a force of harm in your life.
Some people do decide to take a break from exercise in order to reconnect with themselves and learn better ways to cope with the inevitable stressors of life, and then return to it after the hiatus it in a much more balanced way. This temporary break from your workouts, if you decide to go this route, can make all the difference, and give your body an opportunity to recover and heal from any nagging or chronic injuries.
We also work closely with certified personal trainers, and we are happy to give you scientific information regarding exercise and recovery.
If you are noticing worrisome physical symptoms, improving your relationship with food now might prevent costly medical treatments down the line. Furthermore, compensatory behaviors (e.g., compulsive overexercise, unprescribed medications, laxative use, etc.) can damage the health and functioning of your body in multiple ways. By engaging in therapy for Anorexia, it’s possible to learn to better care for yourself, cope with challenges successfully without resorting to eating disorder behaviors, and create the life that you truly want to live. The benefits of seeking treatment are infinite and although it looks different for everyone, recovery is possible.
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Investing in your physical and mental health is one of the most important and valuable investments you could possibly make. Compulsive exercise typically involves immense feelings of anxiety, shame, exhaustion, and feeling like a failure, and this can destroy the quality of your everyday life. We understand that treatment is expensive, but the costs to your emotional and perhaps physical wellbeing if you don’t get help can be even greater. If you simply cannot afford treatment right now, please reach out anyway, and we can look at alternatives through other programs.
If you are noticing worrisome physical symptoms, improving your relationship with exercise now might prevent costly medical treatments in the future. Furthermore, excessive exercise behaviors can damage the health and functioning of your body in multiple ways. By engaging in therapy for compulsive exercise, it’s possible to learn to better care for yourself, cope with challenges successfully without resorting to harmful behaviors, and create the life that you truly want to live. The benefits of engaging in treatment are infinite, and although it looks different for everyone, recovery is possible.
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We understand how busy you are. The demands of work, family, and life in general can make it feel like there is no time left in the week just for you, especially when you feel depleted. However, this might play a role in the ways that you “cope” with overexercise. With compassion and respect, we encourage you to make time for yourself, and make your own healing a priority in the week. Your mental health and the quality of your life matters so much. We can help you to develop healthy coping skills to deal with stress, and guide you toward creating a life that you can truly love.
Help Is Available for Compulsive Exercise
We’re here for you. Schedule a complimentary phone consultation to ask all of your questions, and see if we might be a good fit for you.
