Many of us get up in the dark to exercise. But how many of us question why we’re doing it?

July 9, 2026 — 5:00am

I have begun walking in the morning – for two reasons. Like many women my age, I’ve put on weight and my clothes don’t fit anymore. I don’t mean jeans so tight you drive home from work with their top button undone. I literally can’t get my pants over my hips. Which makes me quite sad because I like my clothes and I hate shopping.

Secondly, I know that the generally accepted best way to live longer is to move your body every day – and I must admit I do not. Not even every second day. I like to smash out a run here, a Pilates class there, but only when the mood takes me, which these days isn’t often because I’m tired and busy and I’d much rather read a book. I know I should do more, I just don’t really want to.

Luckily, a very fit woman on Insta told me that small goals and consistent exercise is better than sporadic grand gestures, and she lost 20 kilos simply walking 30 minutes every morning. I like the theory. Bite-sized, achievable action. Sounds very normal and healthy, and clearly the pathway to getting back into my favourite pleather skirt.

So, every day at 6am I force myself out into the dark – unrecognisable in beanie, gloves and Melbourne standard-issue black puffer – to snatch 30 minutes before my kid is up and the day stops being my own. I hope I look purposeful and powerful – more likely I look angry and slightly deranged.

I wish I could say I enjoy this daily ritual. That the bracing cold is invigorating and there’s nothing I love more than to Kath Day-Night my way around my suburb, while my husband, kid and dog snore away in their cosy beds (in the case of the dog – my bed, the little sneak.)

But I hate it – partly because of the rude awakening. It feels as though I’ve been violently shaken and shoved into a cold shower. I like to start my day with multiple snooze buttons followed by a gentle Ugg-boot shuffle to a boiling kettle and my comfy meditation armchair.

I wouldn’t be out there in the first place if I hadn’t learned long ago that the thing to fear more is seeing a couple of extra kilos on the scale.

My nervous system does not like urgency or being in the elements before 8am. And it loathes loud hectic traffic. But I’m a woman walking alone in the dark – I simply don’t feel safe in the quiet backstreets – so I’m forced to trudge along main roads, beside speeding trucks and spewing fumes, before I’ve even had my first coffee.

And this is the other reason the whole exercise gets me very cross. There’s me – jumping at shadows out of fear for my physical safety – when I wouldn’t be out there in the first place if I hadn’t learned long ago that the thing to fear more is seeing a couple of extra kilos on the scale.

Such is the power of conditioning in me, begun at 13 when I picked up my first Dolly magazine, that I’ve weighed up the risks and intuitively opted for 4000 steps in the middle of the night and a nasty dose of self-flagellation as I go.

You can cover a lot of mental ground in just under 5 kms – and I do. About what I eat, how much I eat and how terribly undisciplined I am. I can feel old patterns creeping back – the mean self-talk and the disordered eating of my 20s that robbed me of all joy.

In response, I defiantly recommit to eating all and any foods I want because that’s what life is for! I don’t deny myself anymore – when I try, I fail. Most recently I announced I’d given up hot chips – that lasted only two days.

Even as I wonder if intermittent fasting might help, I lovingly remind myself that I’m old enough to know I can choose differently. That unlike the frightened younger version of me who felt she was only visible because of the way she looked, I now take up space with my heart and ideas.

And finally I resolve – for god’s sake, stop torturing yourself and just buy new clothes.

I think many women are accompanied by their own internal debate. A grumbling soundtrack to their relationship with their bodies, that may never have an easy resolution.

For me, I have concluded that feeling strong and healthy makes a 6am walk absolutely worth it – some days. But losing weight – when it’s for any other reason than my health (and health comes in all shapes and sizes) – is boring and pointless.

What’s more important is that I never stop walking towards an unconditional acceptance of who I am. And I stop taking advice from people on Instagram – unless it’s a hot tip on where to get a new pleather skirt. I’m definitely in the market.

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