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Comment by dave1619 | Hacker News Reader

Wow, this is amazing. I'd love to try it out, but I'm not sure what I can do in the morning before breakfast. Maybe stationary bicycle. Anybody exercising before breakfast? What kind of exercise are you doing?

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Get a good elliptical. It will work out your entire body (unlike stationary bikes) and not hurt in case you have knee problems (like treadmills). Put the elliptical in front of TV if you like and do 30-45mins every other day. I was 193lbs in August. I'm 174lbs now. Though I'd say I'm more of an exception because I gain/lose weight really fast. Nevertheless, I highly recommend a good elliptical - both my wife and I love the one we got.

Each machine has its strengths and weaknesses. I find that stationary bikes tend to get really uncomfortable after awhile, too. My posture isn't the best and I feel like I suffer on a bike because of the hunching I feel like I have to do in order to grip the bars in front of me. It's also worth mentioning that a mediocre seat can definitely be painful after a period of time.

In the bike's defense: as a runner, spinning on the bike is an absolutely awesome to maintain cardio-fitness after a running injury.

The other huge advantage to the elliptical machine is your body works far harder than a bike while feeling like it's doing a lot less - I checked this with a heart rate monitor and an all-out effort on a bike did the same as what felt like only medium effort on the elliptical.

I second this. My wife and I also have an elliptical, and it's much easier to handle in the morning, rather than running. Although in the spring/summer/fall I tend to enjoy running outside in the morning over the elliptical.

Try squats. They are simple, they roughly correspond in energy expenditure to not-so-fast running, they do not put too much blow on joints.

Squats were used by Soviet marathon runners for training in winter, when it is too cold outside to run. They squatted for hours.

One my squat is approximately 2.5 second. 5 minutes amounts to 120 squats. 30 minutes - 720.

I think you'll appreciate the power of 720 squats. ;)

Squats are pretty variable. You can put your hands behind your back, fold them on the chest, actively wave them helping squats - all those variation will give you different feeling.

You can also squat with weights. I've started in April and am doing 120kg now. Consult `Starting Strength' for that.

Running isn't too bad either. Go barefoot or with something like Vibram FiveFingers if you care about your joints at all.

Burpee's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burpee_(exercise)

If you're going to do bike riding why not use a real bike outside? I hate sitting on stationary bikes and will give up quickly. If you go a planned route on a real bike that requires much less (or zero) willpower to finish it. And it's much more fun too.

When I lived in London there was an outdoor pool on the route to the office. The exercise and the sunlight helped me wake up and I had a choice of 20 or so places to grab breakfast on the way. Nowadays I run in the mornings but its not the same.

If you get a set of basic adjustable dumbells you can quickly work all the major muscle groups at home, which helps fire up your body for the entire day.

Barbells and following `Starting Strength' also work nice. But that's a bit more investment in infrastructure.

Also---in addition---consider getting a pull-up bar. Pull-ups [1] are a nice functional exercise for your upper body.

[1] And press-ups, but they don't require any equipment.

jump on the stationary bike and go at a slow pace (60-65% max heartrate).

I have seen this work wonders on countless people.

Sounds good. I bought the full article and I'm even more convinced about exercising before breakfast.

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