Exercise and Fitness Forum

Passion or Addiction?

by Earl R. Curry

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I just attended 2 completely different conferences within the last 3 weeks. From an exercise perspective, they were polar opposites. One conference was the Obesity Help Conference in Lexington, Kentucky and the other was the National Throws Coaches Association Conference and Clinic in Columbus, Ohio.

Most of you are probably familiar with an Obesity Help Conference. It usually consists of a number of lectures on general health, plastic surgery, nutrition, vitamins and exercise all related to Weight Loss Surgery. Most the lectures are given by Doctors, Registered Nurses, PhDs, dieticians and personal trainers. Most the exercise lectures are geared toward beginners or just general fitness.

At one lecture I attended in Lexington at the Obesity Help Conference on Relapse and Alternative Addictions, by Dr. Leslie Seppinni, a Clinical Psychologist, the room was packed, probably because Oprah Winfrey just did a show on WLS and substitute addictions.  On Oprah?s show they basically said that being overweight was just a byproduct of a problem that drove people to eat in the first place. They became addicted to eating to mask some other emotional issue. Thinking WLS would cure the addiction to eating, which it does to a great extent, but still having whatever underlying emotional issue, people with WLS turn to another addictive behavior since we can?t eat to mask the original issue. (Don?t you just love the blame game?) Apparently they estimate about 30 percent who have had gastric bypass will struggle with new addictions like alcoholism, gambling, compulsive shopping, sex addiction and exercise.

I had asked the presenter why exercise would be considered an addiction. Exercise is a good thing right? The words ?addiction?, ?compulsive? and ?obsessed? just sound negative to me and I don?t consider exercise as a negative. She seemed to be grouping exercise in with being an alcoholic. It just didn?t make sense to me. I?ve been told from time to time that I?m addicted, OCD or obsessed with exercise and working out, so it kind of hit home with me. 

She asked me how often I work out. I told her basically every day. But I told her I?ve always worked out every day, even years before WLS. I started training for one sport or another since I was 12 years old. Even when I was fat (fatter?I?m still not exactly skinny), I worked out with weights and exercised every day. An off day for me might be a 45 minute walk. She said I definitely appear to be addicted. But she said she ?worked out 4 days a week?, so she ?wasn?t? addicted.

She mentioned something about freeing up time from our addiction to go out and do something we enjoy or something productive that will better our lives. What does she think exercise is? She?s obviously doesn?t enjoy working out those 4 days and must not be working too hard at it if it?s not bettering her health or her life.

At this point I?m just getting agitated. I didn?t understand why I?m addicted and not just passionate about exercise. Why am I considered addicted and not just dedicated or consistent? Because I enjoy doing something every day, something that?s actually good for me and does nothing but make me stronger, healthier and live longer, why is that a negative thing just because I like to do it every day and someone else doesn?t? It didn?t make sense to me.

I can understand being addicted to something destructive like smoking, alcohol and drugs. Sexual addiction I?m a little iffy on, I don?t see how something natural can be an addiction. I take my vitamins every day?is that an addiction? I still have to eat every day?is that still an addiction?

The dictionary defines Addiction as: The habitual psychological and physiological dependence on a substance or practice beyond one's voluntary control.

So technically?breathing is an addiction. We all have a habitual physiological dependence on Air that?s beyond our voluntary control.

The other Conference I went to was the National Throws Coaches Association Conference. It?s similar to the Obesity Help Conference in that it?s basically a series of lectures. Some are learn by do, some film study or panel discussions. Similar to Obesity Help?s conference were the experts. This year was mind blowing for a competitor like me or just a fan of track and field in general. Everywhere you looked there was an icon of the Olympic Games or an international level track and field athlete or coach. Some of the names might not mean anything to anyone outside Track and Field, but Mac Wilkins, Brian Oldfield, John Powell, Jay Silvester, John Godina, Reese Hoffa, Kate Schmidt, George Woods, Knut Hjeltness, Michael Carter, Hal Connolly, Jud Logan, Larry Judge and Louie Simmons were just some of the speakers.

You haven?t lived until you sit in on a lecture with the biomechanics for the American Olympic Shot Put team, as he breaks down the physics involved in throwing a shot put. (Just kidding?it?s as boring as it sounds?but very educational.) Anyway, what?s this have to do with WLS, addiction and obsession? Well, listening to all these great athletes and coaches of great athletes, there was one thing that started to become apparent to me. They?re all technically obsessed with their sport.

In throwing, like most sports, it?s all about technique. What?s the angle of release, speed of release, how many milliseconds does it take to move your foot from here to there? When you?re talking about professional athletes like this, it?s the little things that matter. They have the basics down. They need to fine tune what they already do better than most humans and be more consistent when they do it. They film themselves and break down their actions by frame. There are basically 30 frames per second in a film and they actually compare how fast it takes to get their foot from here to there. One guy takes 4 frames another maybe 3. To the human eye, they?re the same, but it could mean the difference between, winning a gold medal in the Olympics or Silver. Would anyone classify a dedicated professional athlete as addicted or obsessed with exercise or their sport?

Have you ever watched the Golf channel? There?s a whole TV channel devoted to nothing but how to hit a little ball with a little stick and make it go where you want it to go. I don?t golf. But I understand the passion for it. I understand taking something that sounds very simple, something that can never, ever be perfected and trying to perfect it. Even if you hit that hole in one, which is the games idea of perfect, there is nobody that?s consistently perfect.  But every golfer knows, it?s the journey that?s the reward, not the destination. Tiger Woods started playing golf as a small child. He loved it then and loves the game today. Is he obsessed with golf or just doing what he loves to do everyday?

How can you get out of bed in the morning and not have a passion for something?anything? It doesn?t have to be sports or exercise. It can be knitting or gardening or collecting comic books. But everyone needs to have a passion. I just happen to have a passion for exercise. I train for a purpose usually, it used to be for football, then power lifting and now track, but I enjoy the actual workouts more than competing. I enjoy feeling the endorphins energizing the body. I enjoy that feeling of accomplishment in setting a goal and achieving it, almost every workout. There are very few things in life that are measurable like resistance training, that you can set and achieve a goal on an almost daily basis.  It?s like that giddy feeling when after WLS we can count the pounds lost almost daily. It eventually slows downs and stops and we lose that sense of accomplishment. I never lose it with resistance training. I?m giddy every day. (Ok, I didn?t say I wasn?t weird.)

If it?s an addiction to be healthy, strong and giddy, just call me an addict and I?m proud of it.