Morning exercise

[LearnedfromTV]

my gym has one of these. i was planning on doing it this spring. thanks for reminding me what a sloth i am!

Seriously, morning exercise is great if you can make yourself do it. I remember morning practice days in high school and college make waking up feel absolutely brutal, but from like 9am on those were always great days. I don't know the details but there's clearly something very good physiologically going on there.

[raptor517]

suzzer, this actually sounds pretty cool.

[edfurlong]

How many people are in the class? What kind of age/gender/fitness level are they?

[suzzer99]

My class has 20. 7 M, 13 F I think. A few of the people are pretty fit, a few are bowling-ball shaped, most are somewhere inbetween. It's these guys: http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/cls/326013571.html, but the South Bay version. It's $300 for the 6 weeks + a $50 equipment fee that you only have to pay once a year.

The guy in the INTEGRITY picture with the red pants is our instructor. He's 52 but looks 35. The people in the big picture represent a pretty accurate cross-section of what my class is like, although not as big--this is the A and B groups combined.

Here's their main page: http://www.ssfitness.com/bootcamp_new.html

A quick google search looks like there a few other boot camps around LA.

[suzzer99]

Also if anyone's interested - I'm getting the zone diet delivered fresh every day by these guys: http://www.zonechefs.com/ The food is generally pretty tasty and it's not too hard to stick to the diet at all. Although I have been cheating too much - stuff like a donut at work or starbucks coffee cake etc etc.

It's fairly expensive - $40/day. But not much more than what I was spending for lunch/dinner/starbucks/etc per day. A group here at my new job goes out for a $15+ lunch every day. I gained 10 lbs. in 3 weeks of eating like that. Ugh.

I haven't really lost a bunch of weight yet, but my stomach has very little fat on it. So I know I'm shifting weight from fat to muscle. I always lose in my stomach first, then the right love handle, then the left one, then the rest of my body.

The thing is, I feel 100% confident if I stay with these two programs at once, I can't help but eventually get in pretty good shape, even if it takes a while and a lot of $$$. I feel like I have a light at the end of the tunnel for once, which has really improved my outlook on life and everything at the moment. We'll see how it goes.

[CharlieDontSurf]

I'm thinking of doing this: I work 9-7 every day and sit in traffic for like an hour both ways so its a pain to hit the gym at like 9 pm then go home and basically go to bed..plus i kind of feel crappy at work and have always wondered if working out in the morning might help.

I've thought about doing a intense combo of rowing/running/pullups/chins/pushups etc at the gym or maybe finding a swiming pool and hitting the pool every morning.

Waking up at 6am will suck but might be +EV long term

[suzzer99]

One thing I know for sure is I could never do this on my own - at least not at first. Maybe after a few 6-week sessions I'll have the gumption to get myself up and work myself out, knowing I have only myself to let down. But I don't know. Generally I don't have much problem letting myself down. I know what a screwup I am. No point in me trying to impress myself.

[lippy]

I have absolutely no idea how one can get up that early and work out. There is no possible way I could do this regularly.

I'm thinking about starting a thread about waking up early and how people manage to do it. I know a lot of it is biological, but I'm sure there are the 1PM risers, like me, that have converted. Hrm.

[suzzer99]

I used to be like that. When I was in my early 20s I had a job where I had to be there at 6:30 and it was pure torture for me. I'm 38 now and it's much easier for me to get up early. Generally as you get older you don't sleep so much/hard. I used to sleep like a rock, now I'm instantly awake at any unfamiliar noise. I also wake up about 10 minutes before my alarm goes off every single time. It's spooky.

I think in addition to chemical changes that make you sleep less sound - as you get older and get more responsibilities, you learn how to keep important things in the forefront of your mind. Once you learn that mechanism, you can apply it to stuff like getting up if needed. The trade-off is you never really feel carefree anymore.

[MOTO123]

I have been doing a 6am boot camp myself since January. It has been awesome to date. I went from back problems and almost puking the first session to losing 20 lbs., losing 5% body fat and running a 5K in 23 minutes. It helps me to work out in a group, the boot camp is really close to my house and its reasonably priced. Seems like people have them going everywhere. I have heard some bad things about other boot camps, so I'm sure how its run makes a big difference.

Good luck.