I understood all too well when I was pregnant with my second son that I would soon have to struggle to find time to exercise. I was still a fellow when he was born and lived an hour’s drive away from our office. Between the commute and the 8am-5pm (8pm on Tuesdays) schedule, I was away from home over sixty hours of the week. And that’s before studying medicine, which a fellow ought to do, if she possibly can.
And you know what?
I still exercised every day. I had been exercising daily for years, including all the years of residency. When I consider how I did it, these are the tips I would give a friend:
1. Compromise elsewhere
Working out in the morning (and I do think morning is the best time) was not any more negotiable than brushing my teeth and going to work. Better to be five minutes late (I was), or wear the same outfit a lot (I did) than to break the routine of a daily workout.
2. Streamline your mornings in every other way.
Set out your clothes the night before. Make sure you don’t have to agonize over what to wear (to exercise or to work). Keep your keys, your ID badge, your white coat all in the same place. Your laptop should be packed away and ready to go. Make your lunch the night before, complete in its bag, and put it in the fridge. If your car needs gas, buy an electric vehicle. Or try fueling up the night before.
3. Go to bed early.
How can you wake up 45 minutes before you need to get ready if you don’t make time for it? Sleep earlier, wake up fresher and happier. Do this consciously. Plan out your morning- up at 5:30, exercise till 6:15, make coffee, shower, dress the baby, in the car by 6:50am.
4. Acknowledge that there is enough time.
In my week, after excluding my 64 hours (including commute) of work, I still had 108 hours of time left. Even counting solely week days, there were 56 hours left to me to do as I pleased. Even if I slept a solid 8 hours a night (which I never did), I had 16 hours per week left to me to get the essentials in such as eating, drinking, and exercise.
5. Build a way to exercise in your own home.
We lived in a small house in Southern California, a land where the air cools in the evening, no matter the noontime heat. We allocated about half of our garage to be our gym. We bought interlocking mats to create a gym floor, kettlebells in ascending sizes, and a Peloton cycle. With the Peloton membership, I had access to all the guided spin classes that are synonymous with their name, but also their lineup of other exercises including yoga and strength training. Sometimes I used another app I liked, Daily Burn, and followed along to their routines, and sometimes I made it up as I went along.
Regardless, the time to go to the gym was never longer than the time to walk into our garage. I know not everyone lives in a place where the garage can double as a gym, but you have space enough in your home for what you prioritize. Make space for exercise, even if it’s a folding gym mat.
6. Log your workouts somewhere, every day
Famous in the behavioral psychology space right now is the story of Jerry Seinfeld’s advice to a young comedian. When asked for the secret behind his success, he described his process of writing jokes every day. He kept a calendar where he checked off successful days of joke writing. Sometimes he wrote jokes when he didn’t feel like it, so he wouldn’t break the chain of check marks on his calendar.
There is real behavioral effect to logging your activity in this way. For years, in whichever journal I am writing, I have kept a calendar grid and recorded (really, colored in) in the day’s exercise (coral pink for weights, sage green for yoga, periwinkle blue for cycling, lavender for running), noting my mileage, my timing, and for Peloton workouts, kilojoules of effort. I like to look back and reflect how much better and stronger I am compared to before, which I saw especially when comparing six-week postpartum me to six-month postpartum me.
You don’t have to have an elaborate system, however—a checkmark will do. There are free apps such as MapMyRun which will record all this for you, but I think nothing beats pen and paper for achieving the psychological effect of the chain.
7. Have a goal
I think one reason it was so easy for me to stick to the exercise day after day, week after week in this period of my life was that I wanted to lose weight, fit into my pre-partum clothes, and feel like myself again. I had been the same size all my life, except when I was pregnant. So, along with the generic goal of exercising in some form every day, I actively performed cardio for calorie burn, yoga for flexibility, and weight lifting for power and metabolic effect. Now that I am no longer seeking to actively lose weight, I have chosen to focus more on running and am training to run faster, with yoga and weight training for continued flexibility and power.
Actively stating the goal makes the work toward it more meaningful, rather than the slog of starting something unfamiliar and extremely uncomfortable, with no end in sight.
8. Exercise in the early morning
None of the above tips even mention the small baby who might be awake, interfering with these plans. That’s because by 3-4 months, many babies are sleeping long stretches. While my baby didn’t sleep consistently through the night until he was nearly one year old, he slept long enough stretches that I could creep into my garage at 5:30am to knock out a ride before he woke up.
Others before me have written about how many of the most effective people on Earth exercise early in the morning, before they do anything else. The quiet hours before others wake are a secret-weapon-time, and I like to prioritize them for the hardest things.
9. Reward yourself
Starting something new is extremely uncomfortable, and often the goal itself (running faster, losing ten pounds) seems too far-fetched to even believe possible. You know what’s not impossible? Buying $100 yoga pants. Or a new Apple watch. I am purposely choosing items that are related to the daily exercise habit, thereby feeding the habit. Promise yourself that if you keep the habit- if you wake and keep to your exercise routine for 30 days, you will reward yourself with something you really like. Then, set another reward. Don’t underestimate the effectiveness of this trick.
10. Don’t throw in the towel if you miss a day
More important than never missing a single day—which happens, whether it’s due to being tired from a late night meeting a deadline, the baby being up all night, personal illness, you name it—is returning to the habit.
As James Clear talks about in his bestseller, Atomic Habits, one day missed is an error, but two days missed is a pattern. To maintain a consistent practice, don’t give up if you miss a day. Get back to the normal routine the next day. This is the same advice we give dieters when they divert from the planned meal—spaghetti instead of salad. Don’t give up and binge on ice cream and cookies and cheesecake too! Acknowledge the error and get back to business.
I am a firm believer that nearly anyone can train themselves to exercise every day, but overcoming the barrier of negative thinking can be challenging. Lower the barrier and find success.
Thanks for reading!
