Walking Early

joannehornik7727

How do you motivate yourselves to get up early in the morning to walk? What motivates you?

RelCanonical

I wouldn't necessarily call it motivation, but I set up everything like clothes and shoes the night before. I also pick out a good podcast that I'm looking forward to listening to. I enjoy walking outside so it wasn't huge for me to just get up and go, although now I'm using the stationary bike because the sidewalk is too icy right now.

nanastaci2020

Sometimes it is just the logic/knowledge that I KNOW I like the feeling of having a chunk of my activity/steps/calorie burn DONE when the day is still young. And because it gives me my evenings 'free'.

cwolfman13

joannehornik7727 wrote: »

How do you motivate yourselves to get up early in the morning to walk? What motivates you?

My morning walk has been my "wake up" routine for awhile now. I fill my travel mug with coffee and head out for 2.5-3 miles pretty much every morning. I don't really know about "motivation"...it's just how I like to start my day and just don't feel right all day if I don't get my morning ritual in. It allows me to collect my thoughts for the day and go over my work plan and priorities for the day while I watch the sun rise and sip on my coffee. I'm not up super early or anything...I'm usually heading out the door around 6:30 or 6:45...so early would be relative...I don't think I could make myself do it at 5:30 AM or something when it's still pitch black outside.

I'm a desk jockey, and if I don't get my morning walk in I easily end up with a mere 3K steps or so by the time I clock off. I do more strenuous exercise throughout the week as well, but IMO, that alone doesn't really make up for being otherwise sedentary at my desk most of the day without walking regularly.

joannehornik7727

Wow thank you for all the responses and ideas

cwolfman13

joannehornik7727 wrote: »

Wow thank you for all the responses and ideas

I guess from a "motivational" standpoint, it's nice for me to see that usually by 9 or 10 in the morning I have 8K+ steps and am easily over the 10K mark by the end of the day...I'm not a huge stickler on steps or anything, but for myself, 10K steps is a good baseline of general activity...and then adding on more deliberately strenuous exercise throughout the week is a nice gravy for building and maintaining my overall health and fitness.

nanastaci2020

On the other hand: walking early in the morning is NOT for everyone. Here is my weekday routine:

5am Wakup, let the dogs out & feed them. Then treadmill for 30-60 minutes. (Recently cut back, was doing 60-70 minutes.) Shower, get ready for work.

Somewhere between 6:45-7, leave for work. Gives me time in case I need to stop for gas or stop at the grocery store for lunch/food for the office.

Leave work at 5pm, home between 6-6:30. Dinner, misc house stuff & down time. Typically in bed/going to sleep by 10pm.

I do have a lunch hour that I can use for errands, or to get in a strength or cardio workout. I'm fortunate and have access to a small, basic fitness center at work. And recently I've added an under-desk treadmill & have a desk riser so that I can walk (SLOWLY, I'm finding 1.5 mph to be my sweet spot) while working on spreadsheets and such. This is to increase my general daily movement, boost my calorie burn a little. It is NOT a cardio level burn. Walking at a speed enough to get my heart rate up: I would not be able to get much computer work done!

Weekends are different. I tend to sleep in til at least 7/8am. Breakfast, errands. I may get in an afternoon walk/run or I may not. It just depends on what all is going on that day. I LIKE that my weekdays are structured and on a routine. It often bugs me that my weekends are not.

springlering62

I like to "close a ring" early in the day. My Pavlov (aka Apple Watch) and I are codependent.

Mom2annika

I'm glad I found this thread! Something that seems so simple but really isn't... For me it's motivating to know I'm not a big slug sitting at my desk for 8 hours having done NOTHING all day. With never leaving my house I'm thankful I have my treadmill I can walk on for 2 miles in the morning, then 2 more at lunch. Otherwise I might go batty...