Exercise helps you lose weight no matter what time of day you choose to do it. The extra calorie burn and metabolic boost make your body access stored fat. However, recent research shows that when you exercise can play a role in how effective your workout is, and can affect your weight loss throughout the day.
Exercise and Weight Loss
Exercise affects weight loss in two major ways. Exercise, especially cardiovascular exercise, burns more calories than other activities. Resistance exercises build muscle. According to Walter Willett in "Eat, Drink and Be Healthy," muscle requires more calories in all activities than fat. This means that, as exercises increases your muscle mass, you will burn more calories at all times---even while you're asleep.
Exercise and Timing
Your body goes through natural rhythms throughout the day, reports Dr. Mehmet Oz in "You: The Owner's Manual." This includes periods of high and low energy, periods of strength and weakness, periods of hunger and satiation. Timing your exercise to coincide with advantageous rhythms will make a difference in how your workout goes, which in turn makes a difference for your weight loss.
Exercise and Sleep
Discovery Health reports that exercising within a few hours of going to bed can make it harder to fall asleep. Vigorous exercise may make you physically tired, but it also elevates your heart and breathing rates. Poor sleep can hurt your weight-loss efforts by leaving you feeling tired the next day. If you're tired, you're more likely to cheat on a diet and skip workouts.
Begging Off
Morning exercisers skip fewer workouts, reports the "St. Louis Examiner." This is because the more time you spend awake before your workout, the more chances you have of talking yourself out of it. Sometimes this is for legitimate reasons, such as a day's schedule running out of control. Other times, you just beg off. Exercise in the evening provides the maximum opportunity for finding reasons to skip your workout.
Will You Lose Weight?
You are more likely to lose weight if you exercise than if you don't exercise at all. By this metric, exercising in the evenings will help you lose weight. However, most experts agree that an evening workout time is less likely to help your weight loss than exercising at other times of the day.
References
- Ben Cohn; Fitness Coach; Hillsboro, Ore.
- Discovery Health: Exercise and Sleep
- "St. Louis Examiner": Morning Exercise vs. Evening Exercise
- "Eat, Drink and Be Healthy"; Walter Willett; 2001
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