I recently listened to a group of people who go to the gym arguing about what time of day is best for exercising. I feel better working out in the mornings since I had great energy from my sleep the night before.
However, most of my friends get their sessions in after work. Although our schedules were different, they swore even if they had the time in the mornings they would still pick it up in the afternoons since when they felt stronger and more motivated.
But what does the science say? He says when you wake up in the morning, your glycogen stores have depleted a bit because you are in a fast state, after not eating for several hours. This has several implications. Fat oxidation increases, but train resistance decreases due to low glycogen.
The significance of this is that cardio at a lower heart rate (under 60 beats per minute) in the morning will allow you to burn a higher percentage of fat for energy, keep you active all day, and raise your metabolism throughout the day.
Fasting cardio has also been shown to be more beneficial in preventing fat gain in a caloric surplus than cardio after a meal, even when calories are held constant. Unfortunately, resistance training ability will suffer and should be best kept later in the day. Studies have also shown that people are the strongest in the evenings.
The conclusion is that cardio training is best done early and resistance late. However, even though the science is stepping towards working out in the evenings, I prefer to start my day with exercise and feel much better for it.
Another topic of discussion is weight fluctuations. Sometimes in the morning I weigh 172 lbs, but after a meal and a nap, I can suggest the scales as high as 180 lbs. Can you identify?
There’s a very natural explanation for why our body weight fluctuates as it is, and it’s very simple: water. Our bodies contain 60 percent water, and our water balance can very easily be affected by many things such as our water intake, salt intake, exercise or lack thereof, carbs, hormones, stress, sleep patterns , age, genes, muscle mass among other things. So if you’re frustrated or not getting why your weight is increasing and falling day by day, now you know why, and it’s perfectly normal for it to happen.
If you want to reduce water retention, the healthiest advice I can give you is to move more and stay hydrated. You need to lower your carb intake and increase your protein intake. You need to balance the missing carbs, but limit processed foods that are high in salt and increase the fiber and total foods you eat.