Working Out in the Morning

I used to work out late at night after my kids went to bed -- long, long ago.  I didn't see it working in the morning with babies and little ones.  But then I read a book (Bob Greene's first book that he co-wrote with Oprah on fitness) and one of his steps was to exercise in the morning.  He advocated cardio more than strength training at that time (this was in 1996 right after I had my 4th child).  He said that when you do cardio, it raises your metabolism at that point and you burn calories at that rate until you go to bed and rest.  So if you work out at night, your heart rate and metabolism rise, but then it only lasts at that rate for an hour or so until you go to bed.  If you work out in the morning, you get the benefits of that higher metabolism all day long.

I'm not sure how true that is, but I adopted it at that point and put up a baby gate on my bedroom doorway so my little ones couldn't come in while I exercised.   When my last 3 children were babies, I'd feed them first thing in the morning, then would go work out.  As they got older, I'd wake up before they did.  It's become the most peaceful part of my days.

I've found over the years that if I don't work out first thing, interruptions come.  Whether it's the phone ringing or too many things going on that day, it's SO much harder to fit my workout in later on.

I just bought a Smart Phone last week (I'll even show you a picture of it!)  I've known that it doesn't help me to turn on any TV news or to check my e-mail before I exercise because my brain will be full of those thoughts and I'm likely to get distracted away from my workout.  Even when I start my workout with those things in my brain, I don't focus as well and want to go do something else.

I'm realizing now that I can't turn on my cell phone either.  Texts are one thing.  But now I have access to the internet on my phone and it has taken me twice to 5x as long to get some of my workouts in this week because I leave and do something else (thankfully not on the cardio workouts, but I did break up my strength training works a few times too many).

So my new goal?  No technology before my workout is done.  NONE!  This should have been obvious from the start, but it can be so tempting.  I guess I'm a little too much like Kip!