Is morning the best time to exercise? The study was published Tuesday in the journal obesity We found that early morning activity (between 7am and 9am) may help you lose weight.
“My prudent suggestion from this study is that if you choose to exercise early in the morning, before meals, you can potentially lose more weight than if you exercise at other times of the day. That means it can be done,” said lead researcher Tongyu Ma, assistant research professor. At Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Ma and his team used two years of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The study included the exercise, diet, and lifestyle habits of more than 5,200 adults aged 20 and older. People in the study wore accelerators to track their activity levels.
The data showed that people who did moderate to vigorous exercise in the morning had a lower BMI than those who exercised at noon or in the evening, but Ma said this was due to a number of factors other than the timing of exercise. He said it may be due to factors.
On average, people who did moderate to vigorous exercise in the morning were more than 10 years older than those who exercised later in the day.
Although some young adults did exercise more in the morning, their older age may explain the findings, Marr said. The observed benefits “may be due to differences in age and response to exercise rather than to activity patterns.”
Other factors besides exercise timing may also be at play. Morning exercise participants were primarily white and female, had a college degree, and had never consumed tobacco or alcohol. They were also more likely to exercise at the same time every day. Compared to those who exercised later, those who exercised in the morning burned fewer calories and, interestingly, spent more time sitting than people in other groups.
Marr warned that only clinical trials can truly determine whether morning exercise is optimal, but the new study suggests otherwise. In clinical trials, researchers were able to allocate hours of exercise to people of the same age and with the same lifestyle and eating habits and directly compare their results.
Cameron Mitchell, assistant professor of kinesiology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, said: “While the results are interesting as science, they are not safe enough to be used to recommend morning exercise for optimal health. ” he said. Along with new research.
Ross Andersen, a professor of exercise physiology, medicine and nutrition at McGill University in Montreal, who was not involved in the study, also said it is difficult to pinpoint the observed effects of exercise alone. People who exercised in the morning were also likely to have practiced many other healthy behaviors that contributed to weight loss and improved health, he said.
Why morning is best
Over the past decade or so, there has been a lot of research into when people should aim to exercise for maximum benefit, but the latest research may have the final say. You probably won’t be able to hold it.
However, there are several reasons in favor of exercising in the morning.
Andersen said he always encourages his patients to start training early. There are several physiological reasons why scientists think this is beneficial, but there are also logical reasons.
“It’s easy to put self-care on the back burner and say, ‘I’m too busy and have to do something, so I’ll just skip exercising today,'” he says. But if you exercise first thing in the morning, you may be more likely to exercise every day, he added.
Your body’s molecular clock may also be the reason why morning exercise can help you lose weight. Every cell in the body, especially muscle, has a molecular clock that prompts specific body functions at different times of the day, including functions related to how the body metabolizes fat, Mitchell said.
Some early evidence has found that exercise can reset this clock and return it to its normal rhythm, which may benefit metabolic health. However, it is not yet known whether exercising at certain times of the day has a greater impact.
Another possible explanation is that exercising in the morning, especially before meals, may also help burn fat.
People are fasting while they sleep, so exercising before eating breakfast helps burn fat instead of carbohydrates, Marr said. The effects of exercise last for several hours after exercise.
“Our metabolism not only returns to baseline after intense training, but also stays a little higher. If people are walking around at a high metabolic rate most of the day, that’s a good thing,” says Anderson. Told.
For those who start training early, experts say that’s not the only change needed if weight loss is the goal. A healthy diet is essential.
“This is a whole lifestyle approach,” Mitchell said, adding that exercise is an important part of this approach, especially since it helps maintain muscle mass while losing fat.
If morning exercise doesn’t fit into a person’s schedule, don’t worry, Andersen says.
“For people who exercise, the best time of day is the time of day when they want to exercise,” he said. “If you really don’t like working out in the morning, I wouldn’t tell you to do it in the morning, but if you’re not interested, I would recommend doing it in the morning to get it up and running.” To do.”to follow NBC Health upon twitter & Facebook.
