ABS WORKOUT

After challenging myself to exercise before work every day for a week, I learned a lot: that the best way to sleep through the night is to tire myself out every morning; that my productivity in the morning increases after I've broken a sweat; and that, while it's hard, it's worth dragging myself out of bed to get my workout over before the day begins.

However, there were four mistakes I made throughout the week that I plan on addressing as I continue my fitness journey, including both things I forgot to do and things that I would do differently in the future.I learned this tip back in middle school, but somehow I stopped picking out my outfit the night before at the start of the pandemic in 2020 when, like everyone else, I hunkered down in my house and barely went outside. As my job continued to be office-optional, I got into the habit of wearing loungewear all day, which meant I wasn't putting together cute outfits.But during this exercise challenge, I was waking up around 90 minutes earlier than usual, so it was much easier to pick out an outfit the night before. That way, I could just roll out of bed the next day, put on my clothes, and walk out the door.However, there was at least one evening where I was so tired from my longer-than-usual day that I didn't take the time to lay out clothes for the next day. I figured I could just pick them out the following morning.

It turned out that selecting my outfit ate into valuable time, and I left at least 15 minutes later than I wanted to. That meant I was rushing back to my apartment after my workout, leaving me stressed before starting work.In general, I'm not a huge breakfast person, but after exercising, I found myself, at best, absolutely famished — at worst, sometimes a little woozy.

According to the Mayo Clinic, eating a healthy breakfast that's full of carbohydrates before working out may improve workout performance by allowing you to exercise longer, and/or harder.