Why You Don’t Feel Like Exercising and How You Can Overcome It

Are you at a point where you just don’t feel like exercising? Are you irritable and sleepy and feel like you don’t have the energy to exercise? It could be due to inflammation in your body.

Think back to the last time you had a cold or flu. Were the feelings similar? Some of the most common symptoms we experience when we get a cold or flu are irritability and drowsiness. This is due to the immune reaction our body develops in response to an infection. Inflammation plays a key part in that immune response.

Our bodies secrete signaling molecules called cytokines that help create the inflammation. One called interleukin-1 (IL-1) is responsible for causing us to feel sleepy and another called TFN-alpha brings about feelings of irritability or anger. Scientists have known for a fairly long time the effect that cytokines can have on our nervous system and emotions.

Now, acute inflammation in response to a cold or flu is a good thing. It’s how our body heals itself and fights off the infection. Chronic inflammation, on the other hand, is not a natural state for our bodies to be in and therefore not a good thing.

So what causes chronic inflammation?

Well, there are many causes, including:

• poor diet
• lack of exercise
• latent viral, bacterial, fungal or parasitic infections
• toxins like heavy metals and pesticides
• environmental allergens, mold
• stress
• poor oral hygiene

One that I would like to focus on, which is probably the most common factor and results from a combination of a few of the above listed causes, is

Obesity. Visceral adipose tissue – belly fat – secretes cytokines and you know what cytokines do. These secreted cytokines stimulate the liver to synthesize C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker of inflammation. Obesity creates a chronic, low-grade inflammatory state.

This results in somewhat of a vicious cycle. You are overweight and need to exercise, but the extra belly fat that you are carrying causes you not to feel like exercising.

What can you do?

Perhaps by first decreasing some of the inflammation in your body you can reach a state where you feel like you can exercise, where those feelings of drowsiness and irritability have diminished, at least to a manageable level.

Here are a few options that can help decrease inflammation:

Eat a whole foods diet, high in vegetables and fibres, and low in refined sugars and trans-fat. The combination of healthy fats and fibre alone can significantly decrease CRP levels.

Flax seed oil has been shown to significantly reduce CRP.

Healthy oils from olive oil, almonds, walnuts, avocadoes and fish may help to decrease inflammation.

Learn to actively relax and manage stress using techniques like meditation, deep breathing or tai chi.

Identify possible food allergies or sensitivities and avoid those particular foods.

Using the above suggestions will provide you with a good start towards reducing inflammation in your body and may make starting an exercise routine a little easier. Of course, if you are overweight, weight loss is the most powerful way to reduce inflammation. Therefore, exercise will be an important part of a treatment plan.

I encourage you to work together with your health care practitioner to identify the factors that may be contributing to inflammation within your body. Once you know what your risk factors are you can address each one individually.

There is a simple, affordable blood test called hs-CRP (high sensitivity c-reactive protein) that you can get to determine your body’s degree of hidden inflammation. Ask your doctor about it. By addressing any hidden inflammation now you may prevent concerns like heart disease, dementia and autoimmune disorders, later on in life.