I’ve been quoted as saying that ‘fitness people are morning people’ - AND I totally believe it’s true. We’ve got goals to complete! And we can’t make it happen if we’re sleeping.

Here’s some of my rules that I TRY to follow, but have kinda/sorta been failing in:

1) Don’t eat 3 hours before bedtime
2) Get to sleep between the best REM hours: 10pm - 2am.
3) Wake anywhere between 5-7am . (6am is best) NO LATER than 9am.
4) Perform cardio on an empty stomach (usually running on my treadmill) for 20-30 minutes.
5) Eat breakfast 30-40 minutes after morning workout.

THESE ARE GREAT RULES FOR ALL Y’ALL TO EMULATE - Lately, I’ve been sleeping really late (around 2am) and waking at 830am. I’m also eating around 4 meals a day and sneaking in a Christmas cookie or two! HEY! I’m just being honest!!!

YOU can usually tell when I wake up early because firstly, I POST EARLIER AND! I probably have more positive things to write. Naturally, I feel more goal-oriented because I get more done before 10am than most people! In addition to waking up early, getting enough sleep period (especially during your optimum REM hours) is key to weight loss. I whole-heartedly believe that if you don’t get enough sleep, you will get fatter.

This morning, I woke up at 5am because I had to take my mother to Dialysis. Afterwards, I went to the gym and trained on the stairclimber for 45 minutes then performed some core work. I intend on performing my strength workout later, so I saved some of me for later

It was nice being in there considering there were 2 parking spaces right in the front of the gym!!! Not only that, but I could actually count how many people were training: 26 people! Usually there are 50 people?!! Considering it’s the Friday before Christmas and the gym has been increasingly decreasing in numbers - it’s definitely not surprising.

SO!! With all this said, I can’t express more how much I LOOOOVEEE mornings - and I hope y’all learn to love them too! It’s an opportunity to have ’silent time’ before your day begins and allows you to watch the sun rise to new possibilities, new opportunities and a new you!

Happy Friday before Christmas Everyone!

Read more about the REM CYCLE here.

Read more about how often you should eat here.

Isn’t the morning beautiful?!!!!