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!