Sure, any time is a good time to start exercising.  But if  you live in the United States, this might just be the best week all year to start a new program!  Why?  I’m so glad you asked!

In most of the United States, this past Sunday, we set the clock back in honor of the end of “daylight savings time”.  Now in many ways this is a bloody nuisance.  But in one important way, this can be a new exerciser’s best friend!  You can exercise at any time of the day, but I think people have the greatest degree of success if they start exercising first thing in the morning.  There’s a lot of reasons for this.  It allows  you to get your exercise in early, before too many life traumas and distractions can get in the way.  And if you’re like me, and you don’t bother to shower or do your hair or makeup before you work out, it means you only have to get “duded up” one time in a day.  Roll out of bed, don spandex and get to it!  And exercising late in the day can either be dangerous (too dark) or make it difficult to sleep at night.

All in all it’s best to just get up a little earlier to start exercising.  The hardest thing is training your body to wake up earlier.  Except, this week, you PROBABLY WON’T HAVE TO!  Your body is already trained to wake up one hour earlier, because you set the clocks back.  So if you start this week, like this very moment, you can go through that transition without actually getting up any earlier in the morning!  Yup!  You’re Welcome!

Now the one challenge with this is training your body to go to bed a little bit earlier at night.  But we have a couple of tricks up our sleeve in this department as well.  First of all, it’s getting dark earlier, like oh my gosh it’s the middle of the afternoon earlier.  This will help you feel sleepy.  Also, exercise in the morning tends to help people sleep better at night.  So you’ve got that working in your favor as well!  And in terms of all of the holiday craziness, you get about one week’s respite from trick or treating and making your kid’s Halloween costume (and 4 dozen spider cupcakes) and shopping for Thanksgiving.  Because I’ll tell you what.  Once the Thanksgiving cleaning, and shopping and cooking and eating all begin, it becomes a lot harder to start a new exercise program.  And you could be be sitting at the Thanksgiving table being silently thankful that you started to move your body in new and joyful ways this year.

And let’s not forget the weather.  In much of the country, the weather is beautiful this time of  year.  There’s a crispness in the air that gives a new pep to your step, and the autumn leaves put on a gorgeous show that changes every day.  Of course, it can also be rainy and snowy and crummy, but then you can go check out the new holiday decorations at the mall, BEFORE the mall opens and the gabillions of people descend.

Of course, any time is a good time to start exercising.  I just  think this week might be a teensy bit better.  I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section.

By the way, reader Kim Rodriguez may have a special reason to get started as she is the first winner in our Great Fat Chick Pedometer Giveaway.  We’ll be giving away four more pedometers, so keep your eyes peeled to see if you are one of the winners.  If  you didn’t enter before yesterday, don’t worry!  We’ll be doing other giveaways.  In fact, if you’d like to make SURE you don’t miss one, why not join the Fat Chick Clique.  You’ll be sure to get some free stuff right away, and I’ll make sure you don’t miss another one of our amazing giveaways!  Just opt in RIGHT HERE!

Love,

Jeanette DePatie

AKA The Fat Chick