I'm an exercise neurotic and I have to own up to that.

As I've mentioned, I'm trying to squeeze three days a week of aikido classes into my schedule, and I can't bring myself to also hit the gym on those days.  I'm neurotic but I'm not that extreme.  I also don't have that much time on my hands.

Back in the late 90's when my wife and I were first living together she would occasionally find tiny scraps of paper with weirdly coded calendars on them:  they'd say things like M: A Tu: B W: Aer Th: A F: B Sa: Aer Su: REST and so on.  Page after page of such things.  I imagine it was was rather like in The Shining, when Shelley Duvall finds Jack Nicholson's manuscript, which he's been working on for weeks, and sees that all he's produced has been reams and reams of pages reading "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," over and over and over. 

Jesus, Kubrick could do scary.

Anyway, I'm frantically trying to figure out how to keep progressing with my strength and conditioning goals while pursuing aikido, which at the moment--as I struggle through these first months of slow and meticulous learning, before I start to get faster and more adept (I hope)--offers little in the way of a fitness challenge.  Should I lift heavy three days a week and ditch my aerobic / anaerobic workouts?  Should I do hybrid-style, outdoor workouts that challenge my c.v. system and muscular endurance, and forget about holding onto much muscle mass? 

This question literally has been keeping me up at night.  I realize that over the years I've actually abandoned a number of very worthwhile pursuits because they interfered with my fitness goal of the moment. 

Is this the definition of an addict? 

Post comments about extreme behavior motivated by a desire not to miss workouts or fall off the fitness wagon below.  Have you invented an ailing grandparent to get out of parties where fattening food will be served?  Have you been so obsessed with the gym that your spouse suspects an affair?  We want to hear about it.