One of my ultimate goals is to eventually start getting up early in the morning to talk a walk/jog. I am a morning person anyway so one of these days I would like to start at about 5am and get about an hour in to start my day. Right now I mainly work out during the day at work and I still want to continue doing that. Does anyone else work out early in the morning and if so what had your experience been like. Seems like you get a refreshing start if you work out first thing in the morning. Any tips or advise would be great!!!

I LOVE working out early in the morning. I typically get to the gym at 6am and put in at least an hour. Some days I skip the gym and take a nice long walk outside. It is hard in the beginning. Make sure you go to bed early, the same time every night if possible. This makes waking up early a lot easier. I also make sure I have everything ready for the morning. I have my workout clothes in the bathroom, I have my shoes by the door and my water and iPod on the counter. I can leave the house in less than 5 minutes. (I started this routine in March when it was still very cold and very dark out in the AM! Talk about tough!!)
I also have my iPod filled with high tempo music that gets me going. Once I am up, I feel so much better. When I get home from the gym, I am on a natural high, so much energy, and I love that I have just gotten my workout in for the day!!
And the nice thing about it being so early, you don't care how you look! You can work out as hard as you want, get as sweaty as you want because your next step is going to be a shower anyway!!!
Good luck! Once you get into a routine, you will love it! As an added bonus, it is an hour all to yourself, free to be with your music or your thoughts!
Jenny

I agree with the previous poster. I also wanted to start working out before work and when I finally got myself organized, I made it happen. I keep my workout clothes, ipod, water etc. ready to go and I get up, brush my teeth and I am out the door in a matter of minutes. Once you get into a routine of getting up early and doing this, you will feel great and will be motivated to eat well for the rest of the day.

Hi! I'm just popping in because your question showed up on the recent posts page. I started waking up earlier to exercise and it's going well. I don't feel guilty when it gets to be the end of the day and I decide not to exercise, and that's a great feeling.

One thing I would suggest though, is to slowly work your way to the time you want to wake up. In the past, I'd normally get up at say, 6:30 and decide to get up at 5 the following Monday and just start exercising. That didn't work. I was exhausted and ended up staring at the TV instead of exercising.

This time, I am making a more gradual change. I got up a half hour earlier, and at the beginning of August I'll get up another 15 minutes earlier (so I can work out longer as I get in better shape).

Good luck!

This is such a good idea - i have motivation but when i get in from work just want to slump in front of the TV - but if i can do what you guys can do - i think i would feel alot less guilty, a lot more energized and a **** of lot more healthier!

I've been attempting to do this as well. I made it a couple of days in a row but then fell off the wagon. I'll wake up and roll over for another hour of sleep. When I have managed to get up, I've realized that my body cannot handle a real workout that early in the morning, so I just take a 45 minute brisk walk instead. I get everything prepared the night before as well, but there are times (like this morning) when I just can't seem to get myself out of bed.

I've been walking at 6 AM and I love it! It's so nice to get outside before the heat of day and while the birds are still singing. I go to Curves a bit later on. But when winter comes round, I will probably go to Curves first and maybe try to walk later in the day or do something indoors.

Here is my issue. I already get up at 5:30am, so if I want to get a full workout in, I need to get up at 4am or 4:30 depending on the day. I too have tried, set the alarm, set out clothes, ipod, etc and just cant get the boost to do it. I even put the alarm in the kitchen and I still go back to sleep. I think it is one of those willpower things, that I just have todo. When I work out after work, I cant sleep because of the exercise and so goes the vicious cycle of being tired.

Those having a hard time getting up in the morning, can you talk a friend into meeting you for your early morning walk? If you know that someone is waiting for you, you have NO CHOICE but to get up. When I first started this back in March, a neighbor would go to the gym with me. I have read it takes 6 weeks to change your routine. Once you do it for a while, it does become part of your routine. My neighbor doesn't work out with me in the mornings anymore because of a change in her work schedule, but I am so used to going in the morning, that I still get up and do it. And I have those days... where I am too tired to get up, so I hit snooze and forget it. And those are the days I feel horrible and end up over eating! For me it is more mental. I am more OP if I have worked out in the AM.
Here is an added bonus:
In 4 months I have lost 5+ inches on my hips AND waist, 2+ inches off my arms, thighs and bust. This is the longest I have been able to maintain a steady workout schedule!! :-)
Give it a try!!

I use to workout in the afternoons, but when I found myself making excuses for why I couldn't go more often than not, I knew I needed to start working out in the mornings. I won't lie, it (and I) was an absolute nightmare for the first month as I was getting up at 4:30 every morning (grrr...). After a while, I just got use to it and I've been working out in the mornings for the last 5 years. I also scheduled my commute to work around my workouts (my gym is across the street from work) so that I don't have a choice in whether to go or not. If I ever decide to sleep in, I'd never to make it to work on time because of the traffic and I'd end up being over 2 hours late!! Now that's motivation...

My boyfriend is going to start working out with me in the mornings. We dont live together so he will come to my place and we will go from there. He is very much into fitness so I know I will not be able to back out once we start....which is good for me...LOL

I was getting up at 5:20AM at one point to go to my old gym in the morning before work (I'd be home by 7:00). It definitely had its advantages -- the workout was over with, you could do other things in the evenings, you could shower and not have to worry ab having to get all sweaty later on, etc.

But for me, it also had its disadvantages -- first, I'm a person that *NEEDS* at least 7 hours of sleep, even to function normally, let alone exercise, so to wake up at 5:20 every morning meant I'd have to go to bed at 11PM, but even that was often too little sleep, so to really be able to function, I'd need to be in bed by 10:00. That is WAY early and it sort of defeats the purpose of exercising in the morning so my evenings are free -- my evenings were only like 3 hrs long anyway since I'd have to go to bed so early. More often than not, I'd wind up going to bed around 12AM and just sleeping til 7:00 and then not having a plan to workout in the evening instead. Second, there was a grogginess issue. I need at least a good hour to feel fully awake, even if I get 8 hrs of sleep, so I'd often be at the gym feeling totally groggy and headachey and not sufficiently warmed up (I'd stretch, but I had JUST gotten out of bed). So the QUALITY of the workout was usually pretty low.

It just wasn't working for me, so I switched back to working out after work, in the evenings. Sometimes I will force myself out of bed at like 6:30 in the morning to strength train to a DVD for 20 minutes, but that's about it. Working out in the evenings works better for me, though it too has its problems. Probably the best idea for me would be to plan my exercise around my evening schedule -- if I have to be somewhere in the evening, exericse in the morning that day, etc. But I just can't organize myself to that degree (yet).

Edit: And NO ONE I know, NO ONE, at all, is willing to wake up at 5:30 to workout with me lol. The reactions I used to get from people when I told them i was getting up at 5:30AM to exercise ranged from "WHAT? Are you INSANE?" to "Woooooow... I could NEVER do that. You're so disciplined" (No, I'm not lol).

I would hate to give up working out first thing early in the morning. Once you've done that, a good breakfast is almost impossible to skip. Once you those two things under your belt, no matter what else happens that day, you've done something right. And it's a lot less likely that you'll do/not do anything during the day that you'll regret. And once it's truly a habit, it makes getting back on track a breeze.

I would say that for me, a strict habit of getting up at the same time every day (a little, just a little, leeway on weekends) is a lot more crucial than going to bed at the same time. You can't make yourself go to sleep, but you can make yourself get up. If you didn't get enough sleep, and you get up early anyway, it will be easy to go to bed early that night, and you're back on track. Whereas if you sleep in to make up the sleep deficit, it's harder to go to bed early, so you sleep in again, and it's a vicious cycle.

I think bedtime is like hunger. You learn to pay attention and go to bed when your body needs you to.

And just like hunger, you would ideally also listen to when your body needs to get up, but that is so much trickier. Just like with hunger, where you can't tell you're full if you eat too fast, because it's a bit of a delayed reaction. Feeling awake is also a bit of a delayed reaction.

I love working out first thing in the morning. Generally get up around 5.30am and go out for a run at 6 - back by 6.45 so more than an hour to get ready for work/pack my lunch/eat breakfast before heading out the door to work.

one major pro of working out in the morning is that it's done and I don't have to worry about making excuses later in the day. Also - I've already worked my a**e off so why would I want to undo that by eating badly later on in the day? At least personally I find if the workout is scheduled for the afternoon the eating potentially becomes more a minefield and the 'I'll do better tomorrow/skip workout' mindset comes into play.

One issue/downside I do have is that (at least here in the uk) the mornings start getting darker around october and don't lighten up again until around march. It's a big issue - I managed to run until the end of october last year but quite frankly it was just too dark (I live in the countryside so no street lighting) and too darn COLD (trust me I layered!) to do it. I ended up working out in the gym at work in the evenings instead.

I agree that waking up at the same time everyday is definitely good for you. I wake up between 6:30-7AM everyday, weekday or weekend, and go to bed between 11:30-12 every night. But waking up at 5:20 each day was like a military regimen to me -- it felt like bootcamp (and I was conscripted into the army, I didn't join up). I still do force myself awake at that time when I have a paper or homework due for grad school, but that's it. I can see why really waking up very very early could be satisfying though.

I tend to get a "second wind" once I get home from work and am in the house, so at 10PM I'm never ready for bed (I usually am JUST finished the dishes after dinner at that time). And I seriously can't go without at minimum 7 hrs of sleep; I'v tried to wean myself onto fewer hours, but it hasn't worked. And then I figured, why should I force myself to live on only 5 hrs of sleep a night? If thats what my body needs, it's what my body needs.