It’s hard to believe that one year ago I was heading to my first spinning class as I started my weekly morning gym routine. I honestly never thought that I could be a morning person, let alone a person who gets up early to work out. That was just not “me”.

(Sunrise in Zurich)

Now here I am on the other side of a whole year of waking up at 6:05-6:15am to get to the gym for 45minutes to an hour of exercise before showering and heading to work. I’m not going to say it was easy to do it everyday, but deciding to work exercising into my schedule with no excuse but to go every morning turned it from a question to a part of life.

It changed my lifestyle: When my muscles started slowly growing, I became excited to go to the gym and “work” on my goals. I also stopped staying out past midnight during the week not only because the trains stop running, but because I’d be feeling it at the gym the next day.Exercising every day forces me to prioritise sleep. I need my sleep if I’m going to do anything productive at the gym and it’s too depressing and painful to be at the gym while I’m tired, knowing that I don’t have enough energy to do much. I also won’t allow myself to slag off the gym if I had a late night because Kay will be getting up then anyway, so off I go. No excuses!

People told me it was too much, but for me, it feels just right. Because working out is a part of every workday, I cannot decide whether or not it’s worth skipping some days or not. An everyday schedule also gives me the opportunity to have a balanced mix of cardio and strength training with cycling, running, machines, lifting weights and stretching.

Also, I’m not going to lie, a year of solid gym work definitely makes a difference in body toning. Like… I have some muscles now. When we went to Australia, Kay pointed out that some lady was checking out my arms while we were waiting in immigration in Zurich. People at work notice them. They aren’t nonexistent anymore! 🙂

I’m looking forward to seeing how my body develops in the next year, from stretching to cardio and strength, it is definitely making changes slowly, but surely! And moreover, I feel like working out is improving my overall health.

Running for the train is a breeze and for the first time on our trip in Australia, I was keeping up with Kay on a moderate incline and he commented how he was impressed because usually he’s miles ahead of me. Even when we went cycling together, Kay felt like he noticed a difference in “new Katie” vs “old Katie”. Old Katie would have gotten off her bike and walked up certain hills. New Katie pushes through. 😉

Do you work out regularly? What’s your biggest motivation to get out there and do it?