Early to rise

This is probably as good a time as any for a word on exercising in the morning. Let me be clear – I AM NOT A MORNING PERSON. I'm also not a night owl. Actually, I'm pretty much a mid-day person, if there's such a thing. I like being able to wake up at 7:30am, have breakfast before starting my day, and I'm usually in bed by 11ish. Unfortunately, when you work for a start-up and have commitments after work (especially when you're travelling), the early morning is really the only time when you can reliably dedicate 30-60 minutes to exercise. As I've said before, I'm a very logical person, and unless I wanted to fail before I got started, I realized that I needed to do the morning workout thing if I wanted to get anything but a big goose egg in the exercise column during my trip.

I'm lucky to be staying at a hotel that has a gym (of sorts), so, for the majority of mornings, I was on the elliptical machine at 6:30am, watching CNBC and doing my 30 minutes.

The thing that kills me is how many times I hear people tell me that they can't workout in the morning when I tell this story. I'll suspend disbelief for a moment and allow for the possibility that there are actually normal, healthy people who truly can't workout in the morning, but for the most part, I believe that it's more of a won't than a can't and that they believe by attributing their lack of motivation to some kind of biological limitation lets them off the hook.

For clarification, I'm not talking about people who can't do things because they have other obligations in the morning -- that's different. Rather, I'm referring to the excuse that their bodies just don't work in the morning. In my experience, the human body is an amazingly adaptable thing, and although I agree it's hard to get accustomed to, and you have to figure out how to ensure that you have enough fuel to get going, it is something that you can and do get used to in time.

Also, I'm not a fan of excuses or whining and when I find myself doing either, I think about all of the people who don't have the luxuries that I do, which helps give me a kick in the ass. For example, I don't think it would go over very well if I was in the military and tried to put a pillow over my head at 05 hundred hours and tell my Sergeant that I should be able to stay in bed since I'm not a morning person.

From a report card perspective, I certainly didn't get a perfect score for the week – or anywhere close to that in the exercise column, but I'm OK with that. The one thing that I know will make me fail is to beat myself up or feel bad about myself. I am proud that I got a solid 3 for most of the days, and I'm definitely feeling better now that I'm exercising on a regular basis.

Now the challenge will be to keep this up and establish a good routine at home.