You ABSOLUTELY need to do your exercise routine in the morning.
Spare me from the usual excuses morning haters [like myself!] say: “But I’m not a morning person!”, “Exercising is my stress reliever at the end of the day . . .”, “I can’t even open my eyes most mornings, let alone exercise!”, yada, yada, yada . . .
Exercising in the morning ROCKS and here are the 5 reasons [with scientific backing] why!
- Your morning workout gets your metabolism up and running.
According to well-known [and certified] fitness trainer Stacy Berman [of the Stacy’s Bootcamp fame], a morning workout results to more burned out calories compared to afternoon or evening workouts at the same pace and intensity.
Here’s how it works. When you eat, your body does one of these three things:
- It converts the food you eat to energy
- It uses the food you eat to restock the energy and other nutrients it used up
- It stores the food for later converting whatever you eat to fat
So, what do you think happens when you exercise in the morning before eating your breakfast? When you’ve eaten, your body uses the food up to fill up the calories you’ve lost — an awesome metabolism kickstarter.
It doesn’t stop there, either. Research shows that people who exercise in the morning [especially if the workout’s an intense routine] burn up to 190 extra calories 14 hours after their workouts. That FYI there just gives good justice to the word BURN.
- Your morning workout will never get tangled with your schedule.
Your schedule’s most likely hectic most days but I’ve never, for once, seen a hectic schedule that starts as early as 7:00 AM, have you?
Evening workouts can be moved and even forgotten, set aside in lieu of an errand that came up, an event that needed to be attended or a project that went overtime. But you can never set aside morning workouts for reasons other than laziness. I mean, who would book an appointment as early as 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning?!
Besides, morning workouts mean you don’t have to forego a casual night out with friends for your evening three-mile run, right?
On a serious note, morning workouts make for consistent exercising everyday which, in turn, develops a sense of personal discipline.
- Your morning workout has natural mood boosting powers.
According to experts, exercise triggers the release of endorphins, the body’s happy hormones. You can also reap your routine’s mood-boosting benefits when you exercise in the evening. However, you’ll be snoozing so, there’s not much good about it.
On the other hand, if you exercise in the morning, the mood-boosting powers you’ve reaped from your routine will serve as your shield to whatever crap the day’s going to throw your way. Take that, stressors!
- Your morning workout will actually increase your energy, physically and mental-wise.
Not only will your morning workout kickstart your metabolism, it will also kickstart your energy, something you’re in dire need of if you need to survive your busy-as-a-bee workday.
Studies show that exercising in the morning significantly improves physical and mental health — increasing focus and other mental abilities, two things that everyone needs to have to be productive at work.
There were also a few studies which compared the effectiveness of caffeine and exercise to “wake up” the mind. To everyone’s surprise [including me, a certified coffee addict], EXERCISE emerged as the winner.
- Your morning workout will actually make you a better night sleeper.
Contrary to what a few studies say about how exercising at night brings about sleep, it actually doesn’t.
I may not be a fitness expert but a personally know for a fact that movement like exercising brings about adrenaline production. One couldn’t really get to sleep after experiencing an adrenaline rush, something that a workout routine brings about.
Personally, I am a night owl so I applied the exercise at night to get a better nighttime sleep principle. However, it left me tossing and turning on my bed most nights!
But once I changed my workout schedule from evenings to mornings, I’ve noticed that I sleep earlier than my usual snoozing time, stay sleeping throughout the night and wake up early without feeling like I went on a drinking spree the night before and had the worst hangover mankind has ever known.
Scientifically speaking, one study showed that individuals who exercise at 7:00 AM 3 days in a week had deeper, longer and more restorative sleep cycles than those who workout at 1:00 PM and 7:00 PM.
Morning haters, I know waking up early is hard. But no beginning is ever easy. Five minutes into the workout – especially if you do it with the full glory of a rising nature blazing at you – and you’ll be getting the hang of it. Make morning workouts a habit!
