Man, I wish that was me. My buddy tried the exact same switch last year and made it about two weeks before he fell back into his old night owl ways. His problem was he kept staying up till midnight watching tv, so 5am was just brutal for him. He said the gym part was fine once he got there, it was the going to bed early part that killed him. Sounds like you figured out the whole package, not just the wake up time. Thirty days of that is no joke, nice work.

Changed my mind too, receipts saved me last year.

Man, that is such a real thing, how one tiny comment from a stranger can basically rewrite your whole day. Same deal happened to me when some guy at the dog park casually mentioned my leash was too long for the sidewalk, and suddenly I'm doing this whole figure eight thing on every walk. It's wild how we just accept a routine without ever questioning it until somebody points it out. Half the stuff I do now came from some random person saying one sentence I couldn't stop thinking about. Strangers have no idea how much power they're holding when they open their mouths.