Eat that frog! How to exercise early in the morning

Mark Twain once said "if you eat a frog first thing in the morning, the rest of your day will be wonderful".  Following up on that, he also said "If you have to eat a frog, don't look at it for too long".  These two quotes have been the subject of many a motivational speech, but I'd like to tell you how this quote is almost custom made for motivating you to get up early and and exercise in the morning.

Like many of you, I'm a parent, and I also have a full time job.  Being the dad of the house, I will admit that I don't have as much of the burden (or should I say joy) of getting our five year old daughter ready as my wife does, but I enjoy doing my part to help out.  I have learned that I can help my wife tremendously by waking up early, as she does, and then going to wake up our daughter and get her ready for school, which is no easy task.  I have found that I'm not too bad at it, that is, at everything but combing her hair.  I just haven't figured that part out completely, but the things I do are a joy for me to do in the morning, they help my wife, they give me precious time with my daughter, and they help me get up and moving.

From there, I immediately go and start my morning exercise routine, which right now is training for the Disney half marathon and doing Shaun T's Insanity; I've gotten into a routine, but, believe me, it has NOT been easy!

So how did I do it; And how does that Mark Twain quote apply?

First of all, I am not a morning person by nature!  At thirty-eight years old, I still want to stay in the comfort of the warm bed each morning, and I have tried practically every trick I could find.  I tried to use a dual alarm clock, where I would set one alarm for about four minutes past the first (I did that so it would be in between the snooze time of nine minutes), but I'd just keep hitting snooze on both alarms.  I tried moving my alarm clock across the room so I'd have to physically get up and turn the alarm off, but that didn't work, and, beyond that, it annoyed my wife to no end.  I tried sleeping in my workout clothes, but that did absolutely nothing to motivate me.  Finally, I did the mind trick type things, telling myself as I went to sleep "I WILL wake up and run, I WILL wake up and run", I tried thinking that if I could just get my feet on the floor, and I even tried saying something loudly the minute the alarm clock went off, but nothing seemed to work.

Finally, I figured out that waking up in the morning was a decision, and it was a habit.  I learned that I cannot simply go to sleep earlier and adjust how many hours I sleep each night, because some nights my body just wasn't ready for that.  I learned that the secret is in developing a pattern, and sticking to it.

You go to sleep when you feel tired, but the key is to wake up around the same time each morning.  If you're going to work out or not, still wake up around that same time, just so your body knows, that is when you are supposed to wake up.  Do it for a few days, and mentally commit to the system, the entire process of this, and you can do it.  It's not easy, and I still wrestle with the decision to wake up sometimes, but that's where the old frog comes in.

If you decide that the first thing you're going to accomplish each morning is doing your exercising (your own frog), the rest of the day is easy!  You've already won so many mental and physical battles, that you can do anything you set your mind to after that.  Get it over with, and then the surprise gymnastics class your daughter wants you to see, the after lunch trip your coworkers want you to go on, or that special time with your family aren't such an imposition.

Also, the second part of the quote is, if you do have to eat a frog, don't look at it too long.  When you decide to exercise early in the morning, it may not be fun starting out, but don't think about it too long.  Commit to doing it, and do it.  If you are indecisive in the beginning, you are opening yourself up to those mental wrestling matches that the warm bed almost always ends up winning.

So what do you think?  Can you give it a shot?  Can you commit to eating your frog the first thing every morning, and not looking at it too long?