This morning I got out of bed the earliest that I’ve ever done in my life that wasn’t for a flight.
That sentence was really awkwardly worded but I’m too tired to try and fix it. What I’m saying is that I got up super early, and I’m not used to it. I woke up at 5 45am today in order to get to the 6 05am Body Pump class at the gym. I know that most of you reading this are probably rolling your eyes at me (especially those of you with kids!) but I’m lucky enough to live just a few minutes away from my work, so even on “early” days, I don’t normally get up before 7am, or 6 45 at the earliest. So I’m quite pleased with myself for getting to the gym when it was still pitch black outside and lifting some weights for an hour!
(This is not my gym, nor my Body Pump class, but I forgot to take any pictures this morning [see: 5 45am alarm].)
After the class, which was awesome by the way, I had the luxury of going home to shower and get ready for work. I usually do this at the gym when I have a morning workout, so it was lovely to get to be in my own space. I also had time to make a smoothie for breakfast.
This was soy milk, frozen raspberries, half a banana, two big handfuls of spinach, and half a scoop of vegan protein powder, topped with a bit of cereal and a spoonful of chia seeds.
Once at work, I cranked out a pretty productive day. I find that when I’ve hit the gym in the morning, I am generally in a better mood at work and have a bit more focus than usual. The morning flew, and I stopped just after noon for some lunch.
Leftover tempeh tacos, which I now realise, having uploaded the photo, look pretty unappetising. Don’t be fooled; this was delicious!
In the afternoon I snacked on the last sad grocery-store peach (can’t wait to start the farmer’s market ones!) with some almonds.
This snack held me over through the rest of the day, but by the time I was home making dinner, I was getting pretty hungry. The meal planI decided on for this week had a pretty labour-intensive dinner scheduled for tonight, so I was in the kitchen for awhile before I got to eat, and I was so ready to dig in once I’d plated everything up.
I made zucchini “noodles” topped with homemade sauce and rosemary roasted potatoes on the side.
The part of this meal that takes ages to do is the zucchini “noodles”. Basically you just need to slice a bunch of zucchini into really thin pieces, and then cut those pieces into long, thin strips. It takes a long time, particularly if you are making leftovers for your lunch the next day, like I was.
However, once I topped my “noodles” with fresh herbs and a bit of feta, this dish was worth the time it took- it was glorious. After I took this photo I added about three times as much sauce to my bowl.
And now it’s night time and I’m yawning. At this very moment I need to do a bit of foam rolling as part of Project Prevent Pain before I email trainer Ben my goals for the week. Before I do that, here’s yesterday’s numbers for ya:
(Insert whistling noise here.) I didn’t mean to have such a big deficit yesterday, but I was really full after dinner and didn’t have room in my stomach for any more calories. For the record, I try to eat at least 1600 calories a day because my body needs it to function, but I just didn’t have it in me yesterday. At least it might help negate the effects of my big pasta dinner on Sunday?
I’m off to my date with the foam roller. I hope you are taking care of yourself tonight!
What time do you normally get up in the morning?
Great job on making it to such an early class! I spent one summer getting up at 4:30 to get to the gym before work and it was nice to get my workout done early, but then I was ready for bed by 8
!
4 30!! Wow, I don’t think I could be that committed! I was ready for bed around 9 last night… I felt like such a nana!
My alarm is currently set for 5:30 most mornings, although that doesn’t always mean that’s when I get up
, 6:00 is pretty normal though. I’m hoping to keep that up even when I start my new job in a couple of weeks (yay!!!) even though I’ll only be traveling about 10-15 minutes instead of over an hour … the plan being to get some proper exercise done in the extra time rather than just sleeping in.
Oooh congrats on the new job- what will you be doing?
And good luck with keeping your impressive early wake up…what kind of exercise are you planning to do?
Thank you
I will still be a law clerk, just in a much more organised firm with a very defined role (whereas at the moment I wear about 5 different hats and do the work of 2-3 people!). Plus, it’s a lot closer to home which will be awesome.
The early wake up shouldn’t be too hard to keep up, my husband is a tradie so the alarm will be going off anyway. I don’t have a specific plan in mind at the moment, just trying to get through the last few stressful weeks before I think about too much else, but it will involve a long dog walk and then something at home … I have a treadmill, bike, small weights, dvds and books so will utilise them all and come up with some sort of plan.
That sounds fabulous- how exciting!
And I like your workout plan..just roll with whichever option is most appealing out of the many choices you’ve given yourself. Sounds perfect!
My gym has a 6:15 pump class that I have made a few times, but it is hard to workout in the am. Although it feels awesome after you’re done. Right now I’m job searching, so my wake-up time is whenever my body wants to get up (7:30 yesterday and 9:30 today).
Hi Babs, good to see you here (from one North American to another:)!
Good luck with your job search…it can be so hard in a new country!
I’m up at 5am each morning, just to get some quiet time before the kids all get up. Erin, you can buy a julienne peeler from homeware shops that take the pain out of making zucchini noodles…cheap too. Your breaky looked great!
Great tip…thank you! I’ll look for one of those.