Q: What is the best time of the day to exercise?

A: There are pros and cons for exercising in the morning or evening. A morning workout is ideal (hormonally speaking), but evening workouts have been shown to provide better strength outputs.

 

However, THE most important thing to consider when deciding whether to exercise in the morning or evening is your post-workout nutrition (i.e. the meal you eat after exercising).

Exercise puts your body into a very unique physiological state and depending on what we eat (or don’t eat) after the workout, it can boost metabolism and burn fat or it can destroy muscle and put the brakes on fat burning potential.

Quite often we see people who exercise in the morning make poor food choices for breakfast (or not eat at all) as they are busy rushing around getting the kids ready and off to school and then get themselves to work and deal with appointments and meetings. This usually means that they do not have a proper nutritious meal until lunch time. This kind of routine will seriously hamper any potential fat-loss results they are trying to achieve.

Therefore, if this sounds like you, we recommend that you plan ahead and ensure that you have a nutritious breakfast ready for after your morning workout. Or maybe consider exercising in the evening when you’ll have more time to prepare and eat a healthy dinner. It is up to you to decide.