Monday through Friday my alarm goes off at 4:30 AM. And 4:32...and 4:35. At the same time, my coffee pot begins to gurgle from the kitchen. This means it’s time for me to peel myself off of my sheets, suck down some coffee, and head to the gym. Currently, I’m commuting 45 minutes to work and back home every day, so I have to wake up three hours before sunrise in order to exercise before heading to the office. Exercising before work changes a lot things about my life—some good, some bad, and some just a little inconvenient.
It’s difficult every single day.
I’ll be honest. Waking up extra early five days a week is hard. It doesn’t get easier even if you’ve done it successfully for two months straight. No matter how much sleep you got the night before or how much you love the gym, you will have to use every ounce of strength and determination inside of yourself to crawl out of bed. Even being out of bed doesn’t make it easier. You have to be extremely committed to pull on your shoes, grab your headphones, and walk out the door before the sun is even out.
I eat more food by noon than anyone else.
When you wake up at 4:30 in the morning to work out, you’re going to be famished by the time 7:00 rolls around. So, you’re going to have a big breakfast. On a typical day, I consume a piece of fruit on my way to work, a cup of yogurt when I get there, a granola bar around 10 AM, and lunch around noon. I eat so much food during the first half of the day that sometimes I think my coworkers judge me, but then I settle down after lunch.
I drink more coffee than anyone I know.
I wish I knew how to survive without coffee, but the truth is I need it, even on the weekends. I think I drink about six cups within a typical day simply because of how early I wake up. Coffee is my preferred pre-workout ritual, and that means one or two cups at 4:30 and then another 32 ounces to drink the rest of the morning. There are no limits to coffee consumption in my world.
My muscles are sore by 5 PM.
Since I work a desk job, my body begins cramping up in the afternoon simply from sitting all day. But when I exercise in the early morning, I’m severely sore before the work day even ends. However, the soreness I experience now is more gradual than it was when I worked out later in the day. I still wake up with it the next day, but instead of one jarring moment followed by an all-day pain, I get the sweet satisfaction of feeling my muscles stiffen. This also means I have more of a chance to tend to my sore muscles with foam rolling and stretching before it becomes unbearable.
9 PM is my version of a late night.
I feel like a granny most nights, and my family and friends know not to expect to hear from me after 9:00 PM. But when you wake up at 4:30 in the morning there’s really no way that you can stay up later than that and expect to be able to wake up on time the next day. I try to be in bed by 8:30 so I have plenty of time to drift off to sleep. This means there’s no such thing as watching The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in my world. However, this is a sacrifice I’ve decided to make in order to focus on my fitness.
