#CrushYourKryptonite: Exercise Excuses

I have a confession. I'm not one of those people who LOVES to exercise. As a matter of fact, I'll find just about any excuse to avoid exercise...

"Hmm, that laundry looks like it needs to be done this fine Tuesday evening..."

"Gosh it's getting dark, I guess I won't be going for that run (please no one point out all that exercise equipment in the spare room)..."

"This is the only day this week that my husband will be home, we should go out for dinner..."

"It's too late, I'll be awake all night if I workout now..."

"I don't want to have to wash my hair again..."

"It's too hot..."

You get the point. I'm a master procrastinator when it comes to avoiding exercise. But, I've found a way to outsmart my inner master procrastinator... my secret weapon is my alarm clock. Seriously. My routine used to involve getting up at 5:30 am in order to be to work on time, and then try to fit exercise into my evenings. This routine wasn't working out to great. I would fit exercise into two, maybe three, evenings. The other days I would use one of my excuses. Then, I finally discovered the secret to crushing my kryptonite. I set my alarm clock to 4:30 am and when it goes off I jump out of bed, put my workout clothes on and HIIT it hard. To tell you the truth, my brain is pretty much still asleep at that hour, so I barely even notice that I'm working out (which is a serious bonus for me). To make morning workouts easy, cut out all decision making by doing the following:

Set Out Your Clothes The Night Before

The last thing you want to do when you're waking up so early in the morning is fumble around in the dark trying to find clothes to workout in. Set out your clothes the night before that way you can jump right into them without thinking. I have a friend that used to sleep in her (clean) workout clothes to make mornings even easier.

Have Your Workout Videos Ready to Play

I have three YouTube pages on my bookmarks bar, a warm-up video, Lisa-Marie's 30 day challenge playlist, and a cool-down video. I simply click on the bookmark and the video starts while I follow along. I also have a second alarm set for 10 minutes prior to my normal wake up time to remind me when I need to start my cool down routine. Working out in the mornings has upped my workouts from 2-3 times per week to 4-5 times per week. Plus, working out so early in the morning gives me a new excuse .... "No thank you, I don't want that piece of cake. It's not worth waking up at 4:30 am."

How do you bust your exercise excuses?