Mornings for the Non-Morning Person

On Sunday night, Hubs and I lost our minds and decided that Monday morning, we'd wake up early and go to the gym.

O....kay...

First off, neither one of us is a morning person. As it is, we have a lot of difficulty waking up around 5:15, 5:30 so that we can both get ready (1 bathroom) and get to work on time. Most days, I'm on a train at 6:40am. Thus, I have always responded to the suggestion of a pre-work workout with one of the following statements:

"I could never get up early enough."
"It takes me too long to get ready, I wouldn't have enough time to work out."
"Gym opens at 5am, I have to be on a train at 6:40am, I'd miss my train every day."
"That idea sounds truly awful."
"&*$! you."

So I don't know what possessed us. Sure, it could have been that we've both been feeling lazy and gross and unmotivated and we thought this would be a good shot in the ass. Maybe our brains were taken over by a Maenad (sorry, still thinking about this season of True Blood.) Perhaps we just wanted to see if we could do it.

Well, we could, and we did, and we did again and again.

Know what? I love it. It's the best decision we've made in a long time. Don't get me wrong, I hate waking up. I struggle to get out of bed. I want to hit that damn snooze button so badly. But I've figured out that the reward is greater than the sacrifice of what really only amounts to about 30 minutes of sleep. It's only been three mornings but my thought process has changed dramatically:

Monday morning, getting up at 4:25am. Thoughts: "WTF am I doing? Maybe Hubs will go without me. Maybe he'll forget and go back to - nope, he's getting up. He's turning on the light. F*** this, this sucks, I'm never doing it again."
Monday afternoon: "I feel amazing. So awake and happy. I'll probably be ready for bed by 7pm."
Monday evening: "Know what might be fun? A hip hop class at the gym tonight." (Yup, Mindy and I went, 8pm-9pm.)

Tuesday morning, getting up at 4:25am. Thoughts: "Okay. I can do this. I felt good afterwards yesterday. I'm so tired. My legs hurt. Okay, getting up. I can do this."

Wednesday morning, purposely skipping the gym and waking up at 5:30am. Thoughts: "I love sleeping in! Wait, did I just consider 5:30am sleeping IN?"

This morning, sleeping through first alarm, waking at 4:45am: "Hubs is thinking it's too late for us to leave and still get a workout. Should I tell him I can take the later train today? Fine I'll tell him... Oh, good he might want to go back to sleep... No, you know what? He and I will both feel like crap if we don't go to the gym. We're doing this."

I can seriously say that doing these A.M. workouts, I feel the best I've ever felt. It makes me feel not only healthier, but more in control of my life. It makes me feel strong because not only am I doing something I didn't think possible, I'm actually getting a *better* workout. I'm more productive and positive at work, sleeping much more soundly at night, and just happy with myself for making the choice to be better.

I don't want to hear that it's not possible for anyone to wake up and work out in the early morning. You can say you don't want to do it, that it's not worth it, that it wouldn't work for you, that you prefer mid-day or evenings. But it's not impossible.

It's hard. Sometimes it sucks. But it's not impossible.