I am not a morning person. Well, I didn’t use to be.
I happen to be in the first year law school section that does not have morning classes or Friday classes. Sounds amazing right? It is.
But before law school started, I had planned to do all my reading during the day time and work out at night.
Turns out that plan flew right out the door (like my pun?).
I realized that I had no energy at the end of the day to go to the gym. I am in class for a good chunk of the day, and by the time I’m finished, it’s 8pm and I am exhausted.
So how do I combat this problem?
I go to the gym right when I wake up!
I’ve been setting my alarm for 9am every day and hitting up the gym before 9:30. It’s been great. The weight room is less crowded in the morning.
I get my own space. I don’t need to fight over dumbbells, barbells or benches.
But most importantly, I feel amazing after I finish. The rest of the day turns out to be a piece of cake.
I already accomplished something before noon, and I don’t have to worry about trying to squeeze in a late-night workout. Finding motivation to strength train after 6 hours of classes (torts, criminal law, civil procedures and contracts) is very difficult. I am usually brain dead and tired.
So I’ve had to alter my plan and schedule.
I’ve learned that I can wake up before noon and actually be productive.
And I’ve discovered that I can actually distribute my time between things that mean a lot to me.
Maybe I have to go to bed earlier. Maybe I can’t watch a late-night movie. But to me, it’s worth it.
Are you an early riser?
When do you like to get your work outs in?
How do you budget your time?
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Female. 25 years old. Chinese. Cook. Foodie. UCLA grad. Traveler. Musician. Scuba diver. GWU Law. Runner.
Im’ an early bird — but that doesn’t always mean I want to work out in the mornings… some days I still have to force mysefl, even though it is my favorite time of day to work out. By the end of the day… forget it. After a full work day, battling traffic home, being starving, etc… I just want to relax!
One morning, I was chatting with a woman in the locker room at the gym and we were talking about this very thing, and she said “Well, my mother always said, you always have time for the first thing you do every day.”
That has been my mantra ever since — no excuses if you just get it up and get it done!
This is where there is no gray area on the difference between the “real world” and law school. I know from friends’ experiences that law school is tough. I don’t doubt that. But consider yourself extremely, extremely lucky that you can get up at 9 a.m. and workout. In an idea real world situation, the morning rise would be sometime between 5:30 and 6 to workout for an hour or so, get ready for work, eat, be at work by 8:30, work all day, come home, play with the kids, eat, repeat.
Amen. That sounds quite a bit like the day I’m always trying to have and almost always missing, usually on the workout front.
I’d like to be more of a morning person, but it’s a struggle. I try to be up by 6, 6:30 at the latest. I’ve been wanting to get up at 5 to get an early morning walk/run in, but it hasn’t happened yet.
What time are you usually in bed?
Ha, just this morning I posted about my September challenge to myself – learning how to be a morning workout person. It just has to happen – I NEVER get my workout done when I wait until after work. It’s going to entail getting up around 5 am. Not easy, not sure how I’m going to keep it up, but I’m determined.
If I could pick a time to go to the gym it would be about 10am. That’s the time I hit the gym on days off and weekends. During the week I usually go after work around 5:15. In order to go to the gym in the morning on a work day I have to be up at 4:30 am…ugh…so that doesn’t happen very often.
I’m totally not a morning person, although I usually wake up at hour most people call “early”. I really wish I could motivate myself to go to the gym in the morning, but it never seems to work out. Walking to work has been a nice compromise so far! Afternoon work outs are always best for me, but I usually work out at night because my boyfriend can join me.
Man, law school is so much “easier” than when I went! I had 8am classes four days a week and classes every single weekday. Even the students at the law school I work at now get Friday off almost all the time.
I am definitely a morning person by nature, but one of the things I’ve been struggling with lately is rebalancing my schedule now that I’m back in school. The mornings used to be my workout time, but now they’re my studying time (because I’m more energized and alert in the mornings). I keep saying I’m going to shift my workouts to the evenings, but my lack of physical activity for three weeks shows that I’m struggling with finding the energy. I plan on using the long weekend to get back into a habit of activity and then start next week with changing into workout gear as soon as I get home. Then, onces the kid’s in bed, I have no excuse not to go downstairs and get moving.
I’m a certified Night Owl….but I really want to start getting it in early n the morning..so no excuses can come as to why I didn’t work out.
I’m going to try it tomorrow and Monday and Tuesday!
I am completely NOT a morning person, and I am in awe of you being able to move across the country, start a challenge grad program, and still be able to workout in the morning. I’ve tried it, and the best I can muster is taking my dogs for a short walk around the neighborhood. Good for you! And I hope your first year in law school continues to be amazing. (Can you get me out of speeding tickets later? Can lawyers do that?)
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I’m not a morning person, but once I’m up, I’m okay with being up. I’ve got my workouts slotted all over the place right now – some mornings, some evenings, and on the weekends – whenever I feel like it. In the winter, I tend to work out in the mornings before work, because the whole getting-dark-at-4pm thing? REALLY makes it hard for me to go to the gym after work!
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i’m a night owl posing as an early bird
my favorite bedtime?
2 am
i have to be at work at 6 am 3 days a week though
and there is NO WAY i’m getting up at 4:30 to fit in a workout
so…
i squeeze it in whenever
which right now isn’t that often
but i’m working on it
(best times right now are wiifitting during the baby’s nap, or working out when i get off in the afternoon)
I try to be a morning person.
I can’t work out at night, it riles me up to the point where I can’t sleep.
I think I actually do better working out in the morning — I’m more focused on form and pace.
I know waking up early in the fall & winter will be a challenge.
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I actually am a morning person, and I would love to do my exercising / running early in the morning, for many of the same reasons that you talked about, but I already go to work at 6am. I don’t think I could get up much earlier than that and still be productive
It does make things difficult at times, especially with coming home to a wife and kids that I want to spend time with. Usually it means that I have to do my exercising later at night after the kiddos have gone to bed. More recently, my wife has started running doing C25K, so many of those days we all go together with me pushing the jogging stroller.
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I have never been a morning person. I always worked out after work. Of course, there were the days when work was busy or stressful and by the end of the day I would be wiped out and talk myself out of my workout. Then, my husband went back to school at night and all the household chores fell to me. At that point, I was getting too stressed out to work out at the end of the day due to too many things that had to get done. I knew I had to move my workouts to the a.m.
It was really hard at first. I would set my alarm, then hit the snooze several times until I just gave up and slept in. Finally, I forced myself to get up at 5 a.m. one day. After that, I kept doing it. I grumbled and kept wishing for other options. This continued for several weeks. Now, after about 4 months, it is natural to get up at 5 a.m., get downstairs, change clothes and work out! It’s great! I’m done and don’t have to worry about it at the end of the day. I have more energy to get me through and I never just talk myself out of it!
I’m still not a morning person and never will be, but being in the routine keeps me on track!
I used to be the same way – except work started at 7 so I was at the gym 5:45ish. Now I’m so happy to have a gym in the office so I can spend my lunch break in there, but I do miss the awake and alert feeling from having a great morning workout!
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I’m not an early riser, by nature, and work in a place where 7:45 is slackerly. So I’ve been keeping the same bed time and rise time and I’ve kicked the snooze habit. It really does help!
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my name says it all
it works for me BUT I never did it until we had our daughter….
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Miz you’re up like 3 hours before the crack of dawn. Don’t lie now
I’m not a morning person either, but if I can get myself into a morning workout routine, I really love it. I find I have way more energy during the day, my appetite is totally different (I’m less hungry, or hungry for healthier things), and I sleep better at night…so then I can get up and do it again.
But if I get knocked out of the routine (like I am right now), I find it REALLY excrutiatingly hard to get back into it.
I think I’m not a morning person by nature, but it’s hot here and mornings are the only time it goes below 85, so pretty much the only option for running. I get up at 4:50 to run at 5:15 2 days a week, and I get up at 5 to cross train at 5:30 on the other 3 weekdays. The kicker though is Sundays — I get up at 4:30 to do a long run at 5:30. So now I go to bed early, which used to be tough but is significantly easier when you’re a newlywed! We try to do very quick dinners after work so we can go to bed around 8:30. We don’t always make it quite that early, but it’s always the goal for both of us.
I’m with the great Miz on this one – I am an absolute morning person and love it. My internal clock seems to be quite attuned to wanting me to get to bed early so we can get the ball rolling before 5am. I really feel like a different person (in the best way) when I get my workouts done in the morning. I’m glad you’re accidentally discovering this joy too!
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That’s exactly why I wake up at like 4:40 to get my workouts in before work. It’s really as all hell, but it makes the rest of the day feel awesome.
I would like to be a morning person because that usually means I can be more productive and it actually makes me feel good about myself! However, the reality is that Im usually so exhausted from the work week that when the weekends come along I sleep forever! lol
However, I have found that when Im eating healthy and I exercise and take care of myself my body has a tendency to wake up earlier. I like that feeling. 
I looove morning work outs. And I looove afternoon evening work outs. I just hate working out when I’m tired/grumpy/hungry, so it is a matter of arranging when I can best work out and not be any of those things. Lately, I’ve been giving myself morning work out goals because my days can be unpredictable and I want to make sure there is no excuse to skip the gym in the evening.
It is going pretty well, especially if I have a run planned because I can get it out of the way without having to dread it all day.
Great work changing things up when the original plan wasn’t going to work. Most of the time I’ll get my run in first thing in the morning so that I don’t have to worry about it later. Besides it’s usually cooler in the morning. If you think 9am is early wait till you’re a lawyer and you have to get up a lot earlier!