So i was watching the news tonight and they have this brief segment they do called smart women, and tonight it focused around the idea of being addicted to exercise. Some of their big points were you could have an addiction to exercise if you feel guilty if you miss a work out and if you plan your exercises based on what food you have eaten or plan on eating. Then it recommended if you think you may be addicted to take a month off and practice relaxation techniques. Now, both of those conditions apply to me...I try to exercise daily and do feel bad if I miss a day, and i also try to do a longer or more intense work out if I have eaten poorly or know I'm going to eat poorly, yet I don't think I have an addiction to exercise. What do you all think about this idea?

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Pain is temporary, quitting is forever....

Well, let me ask you this: would you exercise even if you were sick or injured? Do you rearrange your life to fit your workouts, instead of the other way around?
That might give you some perspective as to whether or not you have an addiction, rather than a healthy habit.

It would depend on how sick or what kind of injury it was. I get affected by seasonal allergies, and that can last for a long time, so I'll usually exercise through that. If it's like the flu, definitely not, seeing as all the energy I have is usually used to simply get out of bed! And like I said, I try to exercise daily, but I wouldn't say I rearrange my life according to my workouts, there are nights where I might be doing a short workout at 10 pm, because that is the first opportunity that I had. I just thought that report was a little general, but they probably couldn't go into more detail due to time restraints.

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Pain is temporary, quitting is forever....

What if you get really cranky if you miss a day? I get all anxiety like and cranky. The only time it doesn't bother me is if I'm super tired or sick.

I don't think those two things mean you are addicted to excercise, in fact, i WISH i was addicted...
Serioulsy, though, I consider an addiction, like anything else, something that takes over your life, you can't miss it because it causes withdrawals, or it's all you can think about. That may be a terrible way to look at something like addiction, but it's JMO. Frankly, I feel terrible when I'm too lazy one day to go exercise, but it doesn't make me physically ill. And yes, I do, too, rearrange some things to make sure I can get an exercise in at least 4 or 5 days a week, but that's simply because my facility has very short hours...so i might go work out before i go buy groceries, or something like that. I think their definition of this is really vague, and pretty much not an addiction at all. That's just me.