Are You Actually Resting - Or Just Not Moving?
Embrace Your Real
Julie Ledbetter
5.0 • 981 Ratings
🗓️ 21 May 2026
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Hey hey beautiful human!
Most women know they need rest days, but a lot of them have never been taught what a rest day is actually supposed to do. So they skip the workout, sit on the couch, scroll for hours, stay up too late, maybe eat less because they "did not earn it," and then come back to training still tired, still flat, and confused about why they do not feel recovered.
That is the difference between simply not working out and actually recovering. One gives your body a break from training, but the other gives your body the sleep, fuel, gentle movement, and mental space it needs to repair, rebuild, and come back stronger.
In this bonus episode of Embrace Your Real, I'm breaking down why rest is not something you earn, why rest day guilt can quietly work against your progress, and how to make your recovery days actually support the results you are working so hard for.
What's Discussed:
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Why there is a real difference between a recovery day and just not working out
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What your body is actually doing on rest days and why it needs support to do it well
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How passive rest can leave you feeling just as tired, or even more drained, than before
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Why rest day guilt keeps your body in a stress response and works against your recovery
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How gentle movement, better sleep, and proper fueling help your body repair and rebuild
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How protecting your mental space on rest days matters just as much as the physical side
If you have ever finished a rest day and still felt off, or guilty, or like you should have done more, this episode is going to shift the way you see that part of your routine.
Ready to have every 30-minute session pre-planned, pre-programmed, and built around exactly this structure? Head to movementwithjulie.com and get started inside the Movement With Julie app.
If you loved this episode, you'll also love: Episode 413: The Importance of a Rest Day. It will help you take everything you learned here and apply it in a way that protects your results instead of quietly undermining them.
If you want more from me, be sure to check out…
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Follow me on Instagram: @juliealedbetter | @embraceyourreal | @movementwithjulie
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Movement With Julie | App: https://sale.movementwithjulie.com/
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Macro Counting Made Simple Online Academy: https://www.macrocountingmadesimple.com/
Website: www.juliealedbetter.com
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, hey, beautiful human. Can I steal five minutes of your time? I have something super important to share with you, but I promise I'll be really quick. You're listening to my weekly bonus episode of Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Labbetter. I'm about to give you a quick tip for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace a real. |
| 0:21.7 | Let's get it. |
| 0:22.5 | Let's go. |
| 0:31.5 | Hello and welcome back to another episode on the Embrace Real podcast. |
| 0:35.9 | I'm so glad that you're here for this one today because we're going to be talking about something that I think gets glossed over a lot in the fitness space, not whether you should rest because you know you already should, but whether the way that you are resting is actually doing anything for you because there is a real difference between a recovery day and a day that you just did not work out. And most women, even the ones who've been at this for |
| 0:54.4 | years, are getting one when they think they're getting the other. So here's what I hope you can |
| 0:58.3 | walk away from after listening to today's episode, a clear understanding of what genuine recovery |
| 1:03.7 | actually is and what is not the same as just working out, right? I want you to have an honest look at |
| 1:10.8 | why rest day guilt is so common |
| 1:12.8 | and why that guilt is quietly undermining the very thing that you're trying to do. And also, |
| 1:17.8 | I want you to have some practical tools for resting on purpose so that your body actually gets |
| 1:24.2 | what it needs. All right, I'm just going to dive right into it. I want to start with a question. On your rest days, what are you actually doing? Like, I'm, I just, I really mean, like, what are you really doing? Because if the honest answer is just scrolling on the couch, staying up late, skipping meals because you're not working out and feeling just vaguely guilty about not moving, I need you to hear this. That's not recovery. That's just not |
| 1:45.2 | working out. And those two things are not the same. Recovery is an active process. Your body is not |
| 1:50.6 | sitting there doing nothing on a rest day. It's repairing muscle tissue. It's replenishing energy |
| 1:55.5 | stores. It's regulating hormones. It's reducing inflammation. It's rebuilding the exact things |
| 2:00.8 | that your workouts |
| 2:01.5 | broke down. That process takes resources. It takes sleep, it takes fuel, it takes intentional support. |
| 2:08.4 | And when you rest passively, when you just stop moving without giving your body what it needs |
| 2:12.4 | to actually rebuild, it has to do all that work on far less than it deserves. And that's why so |
| 2:17.4 | many women come back from arrest day, just feeling flat, tired, and not ready to go again. |
| 2:22.3 | But genuine recovery leaves you feeling better than when you started. |
| 2:26.7 | Passive rest leaves you feeling about the same or honestly worse. |
... |
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