I followed Barack Obama's morning routine for a week, and it taught me a valuable lesson about mental toughness

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As the 44th president of the United States, a day in the life of Barack Obama can involve everything from receiving classified briefings from his staff to strategizing global affairs with other world leaders.

But his morning routine is pretty simple — and generally the same every single day. 

Reggie Love, Obama's personal aide from 2009 to 2011, told Business Insider that Obama generally starts every morning with a workout.

He alternates between strength and cardio training, WebMD reports.

Love also told Business Insider that Obama hardly ever drinks coffee in the morning. Instead, the president opts for water, orange juice, or green tea. 

Obama spends his evenings catching up on work as well as the news, and he gets about five hours of sleep every night, the New York Times reported.

When I decided to experiment with Obama's morning routine, I thought it would be pretty easy. I'd already taken on Jack Dorsey's and Arianna Huffington's morning rituals, both of which involved morning workouts. 

But it was harder than I expected — particularly without coffee. 

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The experiment 

At first, I considered only sleeping five hours per night, like Obama.

However, my biggest takeaway from following Huffington's routine was how much I need a good night's rest. Plus, I don't generally have four or five hours of potentially world-altering work to tackle at night. 

But I wanted to challenge myself, so I committed to the following:

• Exercise every morning for 45 minutes

• Stop drinking coffee

• Minimize time spent on small decisions about clothing and meals

(In 2012, Obama told Vanity Fair, "I'm trying to pare down decisions. I don't want to make decisions about what I'm eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.")

Sunday night, I picked out five dresses and went grocery shopping with the intention of eating the same meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner all week. 

I love my cup of coffee as soon as I get out of bed. Variety in food and outfits are some of my favorite little pleasures in life. It was going to be an interesting week.

Monday

Morning: I woke up at 5:30 a.m. and instinctively meditated, forgetting that this wasn't part of Obama's routine.

The president usually rises at 7 a.m., so I was an hour and a half early. However, I don't have a home gym or a private chef, and my commute to work is a 15-minute subway ride as opposed to a 10-minute walk down the hall. In order to complete his routine and get to work on time, I had to get an earlier start.

I started my day by prepping breakfast and lunch: granola with fruit and a tuna lentil salad with hummus and sriracha. All the vegetable chopping took a while. Being healthy is time consuming! 

After preparing breakfast and lunch, I jogged to the gym at 6:45 a.m.

At the gym, I did a 15-minute circuit of kettlebell workouts with no breaks in between. Something about the lack of breaks tired me out. 

I jogged home and ate the breakfast I'd prepared, accompanied by green tea. It's pretty nice not to have to think about what I'm going to eat or wear in the morning.

Workday: My morning was productive, but thoughts of coffee soon interrupted me. At 12:10 p.m., I gave up and made myself some. I really crave the comfort of coffee when I'm putting the finishing touches on an article.

How does one run the most powerful country in the world on less than eight hours of sleep without the assistance of caffeine?

Evening: I braved stormy conditions on my way home that evening. During my commute, I started thinking about greasy Chinese food and decided to eat that instead of the meal I had planned to eat for dinner every day.

That evening, I caught up on the news and life admin between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m., before reading for 30 minutes (which Obama apparently sometimes does, according to a 2009 interview with Newsweek.) I was asleep by 11 p.m. 

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Tuesday

Morning: I set my alarm at 6 a.m., since I went to bed later than usual. When I woke up, I hit snooze until 6:30 a.m. Probably not a very presidential thing to do.

Instead of having a mental argument with myself about whether I should exercise, I put on my workout clothes and I was out the door for a 45-minute run along the East River.

Since I skipped my morning meditation, I came back from my run slightly grumpy (despite the goodness of all those endorphins).

When I got home, I prepped lunch while eating my breakfast. I could smell the coffee brewing, and the caffeine addict part of me thought that maybe I should just skip this whole no-coffee part of the experiment. But I stayed strong and sipped green tea with my granola. 

Workday: Craving coffee, I went to the kitchen at 11:30 a.m. to make myself a cup of cinnamon apple spice tea. I felt sleepy for about 10 minutes and began to seriously wonder if I would be able to handle this "no coffee" thing.

At 3 p.m., my craving for caffeine returned, and I had two articles to tackle in two hours. I needed coffee! I debated whether I should drink it or not. As a compromise, I made English breakfast tea. 

I started getting a funny feeling in my head, which left me worried about my dependence on coffee. At 4:00 p.m., I was nearly falling asleep at my desk for 10 minutes, which made me think that I shouldn't skip coffee the following day. But at 4:30 p.m., thankfully, my energy returned.

Evening: I made it through a whole workday without coffee! On my walk to an outdoor fitness class, I noticed that my head was hurting a little. Could I be that addicted to caffeine? The temperature was in the low 90s, so I told myself that the headache was dehydration. 

I didn't get home until about 9 p.m. due to train delays. After dinner, I tackled some small life-admin stuff and read longform articles until 10:30 p.m. I started planning for the next day, but I was too tired to even write my to-do list, so I fell asleep.  

See the rest of the story at Business Insider