Working Out in the Morning + What I Bought at the Grocery Store

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone! I hope you are all wearing green today so you don't get pinched!

Our St. Patrick's Day started off with an early morning workout at our gym.

Schoen and I will be headed to Riviera Maya in t-minus 81 days and we've both agreed that we need to clean up our diet and up our game at the gym to get beach ready. His alarm went off bright and early at 5am this morning and, to my surprise, he got out of bed and started to get dressed. After turning on a few lights and a few encouraging words, he finally got me out of bed. After throwing on some gym clothes and a hat we were en route.

We made the short 5 minute drive in silence...Schoen knows I'm not the sweetest thing in the morning so he listened to sports radio in lieu of sparking up a conversation with me. Smart guy!

Schoen did a chest workout while I opted for 30 minutes of fasted cardio in the form of intervals on the StairMaster. Here is what my workout looked like:

The Fit Chocoholic: 30 Minute Interval StairMaster Workout

The StairMasters at our gym only goes up to level 12, so I was hauling butt during parts of this workout. You may need to adjust accordingly depending on the machine you're using. 

I have to admit, I was not happy having to get up at 5am, but after it was all said and done, I was so glad I got up and did cardio.


I have not been a morning person since training for my NPC competition back in 2013. Getting up at 4:45-5:00am 5+ days a week for 12+ weeks kind of ruined it for me. But I'd like to get my groove back and here are a few things that helped me become a morning workout person in the past:

  1. Lay out your necessities the night before. I would always pick out my gym clothes the night before; everything from my sports bra, socks and underwear, to a hair tie and hand band for my hair. I would also lay out my headphones, keys and a filled water bottle so all I had to do was grab it and go as I was out the door.
  2. Post a picture of your workout clothes laid out the night before on one of your social media sites. I've done this numerous times as an accountability post.
  3. Force yourself out of bed in the morning. The hardest part of working out in the morning is getting out of bed. Don't lay there and think about going to the gym, just get up and get moving as soon as your alarm goes off. 
  4. Write down your weekly training split. Know what muscle group you are going to train on each day and have your workout jotted down on a piece of paper or on your phone. It won't only help you stay on track, but it will also help you get in and out of the gym without wasting time. 
  5. Find a workout partner that will workout with you in the morning. Telling someone you will meet them at the gym at 5am makes it hard to stay in bed.

After we got home Schoen jumped in the shower and started to get ready for work while I prepared our breakfast.


I made him 25g (carbs) of Cream of Wheat and some scrambled eggs (2 whole 1 white). I made myself 25g (carbs) of Cream of Rice with 4 eggs (1 whole 3 whites) and I drank a cup of hazelnut coffee along side.

After chowing down on breakfast I hopped in the shower, got dressed and then headed to the grocery store to pick up a few items. I'm always interested in what people purchase at grocery stores (is that weird?) so I figured I'd do a quick recap of what my shopping cart looked like this morning.




On my grocery list today was:

Our weekly meals typically consist of a lot of whole wheat pasta dishes and usually a mexican themed dinner thrown in here and there. We're planning on swapping those out and mainly eating chicken as our source of protein and veggies, jasmine rice and sweet potatoes as our source of carbs. I'm going to try to get creative as I can and share some recipes on here for you guys to check out. 

Have a great St. Patrick's Day! 

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