Never stress out over missed workouts.
It is literally punishing yourself twice for the same mistake. And it’s not just additive—you are multiplying the damage done.
You miss a workout and what happens?
You might feel a bit tired later. Believe it or not, exercise energizes most people. Sure, you’ll be tired during the workout, but afterwards most people feel energized and vital for the rest of the day. You’ll miss out on this.
You missed some nutrient partitioning. Exercise partitions nutrients in a beneficial way. Glucose goes into muscle to restore muscle glycogen without affecting insulin. Protein contributes toward muscle protein synthesis (hypertrophy). Fat is more likely to be oxidized for energy. That won’t happen to the same degree.
You won’t get the anti-stress effects. There’s no more reliable way to cut stress than training, at least for me. If you miss the workout, you’ll miss out on that.
You won’t get any hypertrophy signals. You won’t get any fitness adaptation incurred that day. You sent no new signals for your muscles and brain to improve.
What happens if you miss a workout and then freak out over it and think about it all day long?
All the stuff I already said, plus:
Added stress hormones. You are pumping yourself full of cortisol when you worry about something that already (didn’t) happened. That cortisol is causing stored body fat, opposing the effects of testosterone, and making it harder to gain muscle. Cortisol is burning through nutrient stores, making you more likely to turn to junk food. It’s making junk food more rewarding to the brain, making you more likely to make the wrong choices at the dinner table. It compounds the effects of not exercising, making the problem even worse.
Don’t stress out over something that was already stressful enough.
