The simplest morning routine is giving me the best results

I'm writing this post as a reminder that this morning routine has worked for me, and that I should remember exactly how to do it. I hope it does for you too.

The outcome

1. I have had a consistent and very noticeable increase in physical and mental energy throughout the day. This gives me the energy to do things I usually tend to procrastinate on.
2. My mood has improved so much I find myself transformed and more outgoing. I'm usually more on the introverted side, but as of late I've been way more talkative, outgoing, and in a lighter mood, bringing up people's spirits.
3. I've successfully managed my weight loss, dropping 5 kg (from 79 kg to 74 kg) in two months with very little friction. These changes are so noticeable it compelled me to write this post.

The routine

The routine is very simple, in comparison to anything I've tried in the past.

1. Roughly 10 minutes after getting up, I plank for 10 seconds more than I did the previous day. I also listen to a fun podcast during the plank, which adds as a distraction and reward mecanism when things get difficult.
2. For breakfast, I eat 2 organic labelled chicken eggs (down from 3 to help manage my weight), sunny side up, greasing the pan with virgin rapeseed oil, it must not be confused with regular rapeseed oil.
3. I enjoy two cups of Earl Grey black tea.

That's it.
No waking up earlier, no going for a walk, no sunlight, no meditation, no journaling, no reading, no writing, no planning, no nothing¹.

I don't know if any one of these is the main contributor, or whether it's the combination of all of them.

Managing weight loss

With age, it's become more difficult to maintain a proper weight, but along with my morning routine, I've found a few low-friction rules that work. Together, this approach has resulted in easily losing 5 kg (from 79 kg to 74 kg) in two months:

• Beverage choices: In late 2025, I noticed my alcohol consumption was pretty high, bringing in a lot of extra calories. I pivoted to drinking less alcohol and focusing on beverages with less than 20 kilocalories per 100 ml. This includes 0% alcohol beverages and options like Coca-Cola Zero Zero (zero sugar, zero caffeine). While some alternatives sit around 30 to 40 kcals, it's possible to find ones at 15 or 17 kcals—at that point, you can drink practically as much as you want. It doesn't taste quite as good, but it does the trick.
• The soup hack: When I'm feeling hungry or lazy about cooking, my go-to is supermarket soup. You can buy liters of it just like juice. It's quite good, lightweight, and very filling since most have a potato base. Expect them to be between 30 and 45 kilocalories per 100 ml. Because you're never going to drink a full liter, you end up having a filling meal at around 200 to 300 kcals.
• Physical activity: I plan exactly one physical activity per week (badminton).

Why this may work

I'm not entirely sure why this routine primes me so well for the day, but it does.

Planking

Planking is a difficult exercise which strains a large part of the body, mostly the core.
Pushing yourself to do more than the day will release all sorts of chemicals in your brain, which is likely the biggest contributor to the increase in energy.

The planking came idea came from this video from the SpoonFedStudy channel:

I don't implement most anything from the video, but I did take away one core idea:
Tell yourself you can do it; in fact you've done it before yesterday; what's an extra 10 seconds?

The video underlines that the plank should be done in two parts: one for mental toughness, one for physical fitness. The first part should be done in silence to train mental resilience. The second part should be done with a distraction to trigger dopamine responses. For a while, I struggled to find a distraction that worked. I’ve since found that Geometry Dash is the perfect "thumb-only" game to play while planking. Combining that with YouTube Shorts helped me push past the 2-minute mark and consistently hit 3 minutes. I’m currently adjusting the "rules" as I go. While I've occasionally lost the habit in the past, I'm finding that focusing on the consistency of the habit rather than a never-ending time increase makes it much more sustainable.

I’ve refined the planking habit because, honestly, the timing was too loose. I used to aim for "sometime before work," but half the time I’d find myself finally doing it at the end of the morning.
Inspired by another video from the same creator, I’ve added a physical trigger: I now put my alarm clock under my bed. When it goes off, I’m forced to get on the ground to fetch it and turn it off. Once I’m down there, the rule is absolute, start the exercise (planking or push-ups) immediately.
It’s all about building the habit and leaning into that morning cortisol spike. From what I’ve understood, hitting that spike early is crucial for regulating your sleep and wake cycles.

Breakfast

Eggs: Starting the day with protein (and avoiding sugar) has been shown to prime the body for consuming fat as an energy source over glucose stores. I recently dropped from 3 eggs to 2 to further help with weight loss.

Rapeseed oil: A healthy cooking oil should have a a ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6 of 0.5²; for instance, olive oil has a ratio of 0.0775, sunflower oil has a ratio of 0.0079, and rapeseed oil has a ratio of 0.5³.
Rapeseed oil is very affordable and healthy. Virgin rapeseed oil (mecanically extracted, using centrifugation or cold presses) is very healthy, but slightly more expensive than extra virgin olive oil.

Please be careful with regular rapeseed oil, which is extracted using hexane⁴ and a high-temperature deodorization process. These two processes are under heavy debate, as they may have detrimental effects to your health.

Earl grey black tea: I've been progressively getting rid of coffee in favour of tea, as I've heard it's better for you. I've got no source yet to back this claim, but it's part of the routine which works well.

What I used to do

Unless I had physical activity planned for the day, I almost always skipped breakfast. This has been the case for years, starting in 2017 where I would do intermittent fasting (16-8 window). Although I've dropped fasting - for no good reason - I've kept skipping breakfast.

What I've tried in the past

Not to say the following does not work, but none of the items had the same impact as the current routine.

1. 20 minutes of working out in the morning, 3 times per week. Overall improves physical fitness, but did not give as much energy ; it's quite possible I was not pushing myself enough.

2. Exposure to sunlight and going for a walk. I've tried it, the habit never stuck, and I cannot recall if the results were any good.

3. Meditation. No increase in physical or mental energy; but that's not really the point of meditation anyhow.