I have never been a morning person. It's always been difficult for me to wake up in the mornings. In fact, I remember in elementary school my mom putting my alarm clock across the room so I'd have to actually get out of bed to turn it off; the theory being that if I was out of bed to turn off the alarm I'd be more likely to actually stay up. Can anyone guess how well that worked?
 

Remember my struggle to push myself to get out of bed at 5:30 to get my exercise and how I had a string of bad luck with alarm clocks? In that life, I lived just four blocks from work. So getting up at 5:30, exercising, showering, eating breakfast, getting the kids to daycare and getting to work around 8:45 a.m. or so was completely possible without rushing.
 

Now, I get up at 5:30 a.m. so I can shower and get to work by 8 a.m. There is no getting the kids ready, no exercising and no eating breakfast. And that's really been a problem lately. I love to have oatmeal for breakfast. It really seems to stick with me and often keeps me full enough that I don't feel like snacking before lunch.
 

But with this getting-up-before-dawn thing, I've started taking portable food with me in the car (Pop Tarts or bagels with cream cheese — both of which are not good for the blood sugar and don't stick to my ribs like oatmeal), stopping for a biscuit at a drive-thru or stopping at the convenience store near work for a package of donuts.
 

I've tried getting up earlier. It doesn't work. I love to sleep about as much as I love to eat.
 

You know those moments of clarity when you chastize yourself for not thinking of something sooner and feeling really stupid about it? Yeah, I had one of those last night.
 

We have a full kitchen at work — refrigerator, freezer, two dishwashers, sink with garbage disposal, ice and water machine, coffee maker, ad nauseum. As I was rushing out the door this morning, I put two packages of oatmeal in my purse and after turning on my computer I filled a bowl with yummy oatmeal and hot water from the coffee machine.
 

I heard Dr. Phil say once that he lost 4 lb. by changing the door he used to enter the house after tennis practice (he avoided going in through the kitchen where he would graze). It's amazing what can happen with the smallest change in routine.