Another quick post today. This month has been very hectic. Lots of travel. All good. Vacation. Time for friends and family. Absolutely love it. But still, it has been difficult to keep on my morning workout routine because I’ve only been home for a total of about 10 days.
On top of that, this month I have had to prioritize a few intellectual projects in the early morning hours, when I would usually be doing my workout routine. I find that I can’t do my intellectual projects after work or at night because they amp my brain up too much and then I can’t get enough good, high quality sleep even with meditation.
The next morning I’m completely exhausted and I’m not able to workout at 5am and then go to work and function professionally to the standard that I demand of myself.
I don’t know if changes in location, environment, company, and priorities throws you off… but the changes I’ve had to make this month are causing the number and quality of my workouts to go down drastically. Plus, the quality of my diet has suffered a lot too. I think I may have to temporarily adjust my workout routine from the early morning to either lunch time or after work. I haven’t worked out in a week! Ugh, it’s starting to get to me!
Time to hit the reset button!! Look at my schedule for the next couple of weeks, and readjust my routine to ensure that I get to the gym as soon and as much as possible. Wish me luck.
In August I set out to create an early morning workout routine that I could make a permanent part of my everyday life. Over the 31 days of August I followed a daily routine and created a set of habits to ensure that waking up at 5am and getting in a good workout became integrated as part of my morning ritual. I worked out pretty much every single day that month. Even on my rest days (i.e. weekends), I stayed pretty active.
What were my results? And what can I share with others hoping to create their own workout routine, new healthy habits, or a daily ritual for self-improvement? I’m going to share all that with you. But let me start at the beginning.
Like many people, I gained a lot of weight during the COVID lockdown. Not just because of the lockdown, but also because I had gotten several repetitive stress injuries. I had tendonitis (or carpal tunnel syndrome, not sure which) in my wrist from typing, severe hip and ankle tightness-pain from sitting for extended periods of time, and rotator cuff pain in my shoulder. All those injuries kept me from working out. The pain was so bad, I couldn’t even do push ups or a slow jog. My only exercise was walking my dog.
At the beginning of July, I decided that enough was enough. I was tired of being out of shape. I was tired of being tired all the time. I wanted my clothes to fit again. I came up with two goals for myself: 1) I wanted to get in good shape, 2) I wanted to be healthy.
But, I had to start by rehabbing all my injuries using exercises that I’d learned before from physical therapy or that I noticed made the pain go away through trial and error. I made rehab the fourth thing I did after waking up, drinking a glass of water, and using the restroom. I did that religiously, every day. After a few weeks all my pains were gone. I was able to do a few push ups and jog slowly without pain.
In the meantime, I wrote down several lagging or lag measures, which would signal that I’m in good shape and healthy. First, I wanted to drop to 170 lbs. Second, I wanted to be able to run a mile in under 7 minutes. Third, I wanted to be able to keep that pace up for about 15 miles. Fourth, I wanted to get my six pack abs back. Fifth, I wanted to be able to do 60 push ups non-stop.
I didn’t jump right in to try to accomplish my lag measures. Lagging measures are hard to focus on because they are long-term outcomes. Instead, I identified and focused on my lead measures. Lead measures are short-term activities that lead to the outcome we want. In other words, daily repetition of lead behaviors/activities predict success for achieving our lag measures and ultimately our goals.
As July came to an end I formulated my plan. I wrote out the small things that I would have to repeat on a daily basis over and over again in order to accomplish my goals (i.e., going to the gym, lift weights, run, sit-ups, core-abs, rehab, and stretching). These are my lead measures, because if I did them repeatedly their compound effect would lead to the outcome that I wanted.
If I was going to get serious about working out early in the morning, I would have to be up really early to be able to get to work by 8am. My goal was get up at 4:30 or 5am so that I could get to the gym by 5 or 530am. So the first thing I had to do was figure out a way to wake up that early and not just go back to sleep.
I knew that drinking water, washing my face, putting on workout clothes, and drinking coffee were all effective ways of boosting my energy that early in the morning. If I did those 4 things, the probability that I would go to the gym was really high. I also told myself that If I did those things and still wanted to go back to sleep then I could. For whatever reason, knowing that and saying that to myself helped me get up, especially on the really tough days. But most important of all, I found that I need at least 7 hours of sleep per night to function optimally. So I made going to sleep early the night before a top priority.
That became my routine.
Once I got to the gym I would alternate between doing cardio (elliptical machine, stationary bike, and treadmill) and strength training (i.e., weight lifting, resistance bands), and core work (sit ups and planks). Usually an hour of cardio and an hour of weight lifting. It didn’t start out that much, but slowly and surely over time it kept increasing. I did that 5 days per week, and rested on Sat. and Sunday.
So what were my results…
Well, I hit almost all of my lead behaviors. I did cardio, strength and resistance band training, sit ups, and planks pretty much every day. I was very consistent about the habits I had stacked together to help me wake up early and it worked for me. It wasn’t easy. A lot of days it was tough. But by the second half of the month my morning routine was pretty much a morning ritual that I run through even on the days that I don’t go to the gym.
As you can see from my before and after picture, I also had good results physically. I dropped from 220 lbs at the start of the month to 201 lbs, on Aug 31. I was able to run a mile in under 10 minutes. But, I can only keep that pace up for about half an hour. I still don’t have washboard abs, but I don’t have a keg anymore either.
So even though I’m not close to my running goal and still got a long way to go to reach my lag measures, I’m proud of all that I was able to accomplish in 31 days. Plus, I have a new morning ritual that has become easy to do. As long as I keep it up I should be able to reach my goals by the end of the year!
DONE!! One month of creating a new morning routine. Thirty-one days of repeating a set of habits over and over again that allowed me to consistently get up early to workout and start my day right!
Over the next few days I’ll share more about my results. I’ll also share what I learned, and some thoughts on what may be helpful to others. But today I’m going to finish off this set of posts by running through my routine (and specifically what I did today).
So I have to be honest, I got a little bit of a late start today. Yesterday, we had a huge win for one of our clients! Afterwards I went with a few colleagues to celebrate. It was low key but it definitely kept me up past my bedtime. I was really tired when my alarm went off and I gave in to that little voice of weakness and hit the snooze button. Twice. Ugh! Tough to admit but yeah that’s the truth.
Finally, got up at 5:30am. Ran through my routine. Turned off the alarm. Wanted to snooze it again, but thankfully found the strength and determination to power through. Sat up. Turned on the lights. Put on my slides. Walked to the kitchen Opened the fridge and pulled out cold water. Poured it into a 16 oz glass. Poured a teaspoon of apple-cider vinegar into it. Checked the electric kettle. It was full. Turned it on. Grabbed a coffee filter. Put it into the pour over cone (sieve). Here’s a picture of what I’m talking about…
Put a tablespoon of decaf coffee and a tablespoon of regular coffee. This morning I needed a little bit of caffeine. I’ve been pretty good at not needing it all month.
Drank my cold water. Walked to the restroom. Washed my face. Gently splashed water into my eyes. Dried my face. Walked back to the kitchen. The water had finished boiling. I poured the hot water over the coffee and just waited to breathe in the rich aroma of the coffee. Mmmmm, so delicious!
Went back to my room to put on workout clothes. Did a set of sit ups. Came back for my coffee. Today it just tasted a little bit more delicious. Or maybe I just appreciated it a little bit more.
Grabbed my keys, phone, and ID. Headed out the door. Usually when I walk into the gym it’s still pitch dark out. But today I got to the gym at about 5:57. Unlike most of the previous days this month, the sun almost caught me. I’ll take it though, because my reward for these 31 days was that I got to see the beginnings of a beautiful sunrise…
Easy workout today. Elastic band rehab to start. Shoulder rehab next. Then jumped onto the elliptical for 30 minutes. Then hit weights. Chest and shoulders. In between each exercise I did 1 or 2 sets of sit ups. I’ll be back in the gym for lunch to put in a more serious weight session.
Walked back home. Drank another big glass of water to make sure I don’t get dehydrated. Shaved. Showered. Got dressed for work. Now writing this and it’s time to go.
Have a great day or night depending on when you read this!! 🙂
I hope you’ve enjoyed the series. Either way, please let me know what you’ve thought about my Early Morning Workout Routine series in the comments section below.
Quick entry today. Got to be at work early. Ran through my morning routine like usual. [Side note: The sheer repetition of doing my routine over and over again for 30 days makes it almost automatic. I end up doing it even on my rest days just out of habit now.] Walked to the gym. Still dark outide.
Good workout! Shorter than usual. 5:30am to 6:40am. Mostly cardio. Elastic band rehab to warm up. Five minutes on the bike. Then twenty minutes on the elliptical machine.
Then 1 mile on the treadmill. Twelve minute mile. Nice and easy, not really pushing too hard. Definitely not huffing and puffing. But a good run. Had a good sweat going by the end.
In between each exercise I did two sets of 40 sit ups. I think I’m going to incorporate that into my routine from now on. I feel as though I end up doing way more sit ups this way, than when I try to do them all at once at the beginning or end of my workout.
Tomorrow is the last day of my one month challenge to create this early morning workout routine and create new healthy habits. Time to look at my results and what I’ve learned from this process.
Another rough day. I still felt sick. So even though I slept over 8 hours last night, I decided not to go workout at 5am. My alarm went off. I ran through my routine, but I just didn’t feel good. Went back to sleep and woke up at 7am. I forced myself to get ready for work. The good thing is that at lunch I felt well enough to hit the gym. I mean something was still off, but I thought I might feel better after working out.
Ran 2 miles. Not too fast. But definitely had a good sweat going. Did some core, legs, and a little bit of upper body strength training. Not a hard workout. Just something to get blood flowing and break a sweat. I think it helped a little.
But the important thing is that I got it done! That plus. I’ve been consistent about working out. And when I weighed myself, I was pretty surprised that I’m down to 202. Bye bye 205 plateau!
Sharing the difficulties and hardships of this journey to create my new morning routine is one of the things that I wanted to be real about. I didn’t only want to share the good, when I was feeling strong, but also the tough days, when I’m feeling really crappy. But that’s the truth in life. We always have highs and lows as we move forward. That’s just the nature of the process. The key is to keep going, persevere, keep trying to do better, and eventually you accomplish your goal.
Tomorrow’s Friday. All I have to do is one strong early morning workout and I can earn my rest days.
I started feeling sick yesterday and came home from work early. Grabbed my laptop so I could work from home. My morning workout yesterday was SO hard even though it was half the routine that I usually do. I guess now it makes sense. My body was already fighting whatever bug I got. I felt really dehydrated. I hardly ate. Drank a ton of water. And went to sleep super early. Slept almost 12 hours.
Today, I woke up feeling like I have a cold. Not like a flu and not as bad as I felt yesterday. But still stuffy nose, headache, brain fog, and lethargy. Took a COVID test just in case. Luckily it was negative.
Alarm went off and I knew that I shouldn’t workout today. I think it’s important to know our body. Listen to our body. This morning I wasn’t tired. I wasn’t sleepy. I wasn’t being lazy. My muscles weren’t sore, stiff, or exhausted. I just knew that my body needed to rest so that I can fight off whatever virus I have.
Feeling a little better this evening. Hopefully, I’ll be ready to get back in the gym tomorrow and get back to work too. I really like the morning workout routine and healthy eating habits that I’ve set up for myself.
They really help my mood, mental health, and especially help me keep stress levels manageable. I have so much more energy, focus, and stamina to deal with the demands of work, family, and life.
Plus, I can literally feel my body getting leaner. I’ve got more muscle and less fat in such a short period time just by the consistent exercise and healthier eating habits I’ve been practicing. I’m to the point where I’ve had to buy new shirts and will probably have to buy new pants soon.
Hopefully, I can get back on it tomorrow. I’ll keep you posted. 🙂
Hector Perla.com 