I realize the title of my post sounds like a newspaper and eludes to the fact that there might be an afternoon or evening edition.
Don’t get your hopes up. I’m lucky to blog once a day, thankyouverymuch.
The Morning Edition refers to my desire to change up the way I do things in the morning. I’m ever on the quest to become a Morning Exerciser (yes, capitalized…they are like their own breed). I have tried different things and nothing has quite stuck yet.
There are countless posts and articles on the benefits of being a Morning Exerciser and how to become a Morning Exerciser. The most recent one that has stuck with me, though, is the one from MizFit. (Seriously, I’ve been reading her stuff and talking to her so much on Twitter, that I almost feel like she should be charging me for becoming my Personal Fitness Guidance Counselor.)
She’s got a vlog on her original post that you should check out, but here are her 4 steps to becoming a morning exerciser:
- Make the decision and tell your accountability partners (AKA friends & family).
- Plan and practice your workout routine.
- Wake up and dont workout!
- Go go go!
O.K. Got it. But, as always I have my own things that I struggle with that keep me from putting the plan into action. As I was walking on the treadmill yesterday, I really thought about why exercising in the morning has worked for me in the pas. These are the roadblocks that I’ve created for myself:
- I feel bad for working out before Dave has left for work. I feel like we don’t have oodles of time together, so that time should be reserved for him and us. In no way has Dave made me feel bad about working out when he’s around, and he honestly would think this whole notion is just plain silly. He supports me working out whenever and whereever I can, even if that means he has to give me a kiss goodbye in the middle of a bicep curl.
- I’m not really a morning person. It takes me a while to wake up and get myself moving. I don’t typically feel fully awake until close to 9 or 9:30, but by then all the other stuff in my life starts creeping in and the working out gets pushed to the side.
- I hate changing clothes 3 or 4 times a day. Changing is a pain in the butt. Yes. I know. Dumb. But it’s the truth.
All of that being said, I know that I have to change my habits in 2012 (and forever, really) if I want to start seeing different results with my training, racing, and my general day-to-day well being.
So, combining Miz’s plan (ha. just realized that “Miz’s” sounds like “Mrs.”. carrying on.) with my own ways to overcome my roadblocks, here’s what I’ve come up with…
- Make the decision and tell your accountability partners (AKA friends & family). – Um. Hey, everybody! I’m going to start working out in the morning!
- Plan and practice your workout routine. – I
plan on getting up will get up at 5:30 and get on the treadmill to walk for 1 mile. That will wake me up, without the pressure of feeling like I have to do my full workout as soon as I get up. On strength training days, I will do that workout after I walk the mile. On cardio days, the mile will be my warmup and if I have enough time and am feeling like it I can do the rest of the workout right away, or I can get the rest of it in after the kids go to school. I’ll already be in my workout clothes so they’ll be no excuses to not just do it. Oh, and I’ll sleep in my workout clothes. Literally all I’ll have to do at 5:30am is get up and walk down to the basement.
- Wake up and dont workout! – Well, I’ve already been doing this for several weeks, LOL! I’ve been getting up at 5:30am for a month or two now. I just haven’t been working out because of this crazy “all or nothing” mentality.
- Go go go! – Ok, ok, ok!
I’m committing to this new plan for 4 weeks. If it’s all working out (heh, get it?), then SWEET! If it’s not, I’ll take a good, hard, honest look at where I fell short and do what I can to tweak the plan.
I want to become a Morning Exerciser. I really do. I just have to find out how that title fits into my own life.
