When is The Best Time to Exercise - Mornings or Evenings?
The one thing that is very difficult for me to do is exercise. I have a nice elliptial machine, jump rope, toning bands, hand weights and an exercise ball. The tools are there, but the motivation to take 30 minutes of my day isn’t there.
I’m too busy…I’m too tired…etc., etc., etc.
Something I started doing a few days ago is hopping on my elliptical almost first thing in the morning. I get up, help get my son ready for school, and crank some tunes and start exercising.
I still have sleep in my eyes. I’m still in my pajamas.
No excuses. I hop on the elliptical. The first day it was for five minutes. The next day it was for 7 minutes. The day after that it was 8 minutes. I will keep increasing the time until I am at 30 minutes.
I can’t explain how good it feels to have that warmth you feel when exercising first thing in the morning. It’s amazing when I think about it. By the time those few minutes are over, I am more alert (I am NOT a morning person at all) and I feel ready to start my working day.
I believe that will be the key to me keeping with exercise. No excuses. Hop on the elliptical in the morning.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
You’ve almost convinced me to start exercising in the morning. I’m a runner, and right now I run at night, mostly because I am not a morning person. I like to have time in the morning to “wake up” (leisurely eat breakfast, do random chores, etc) before I have to leave the house. But perhaps if I just kicked myself outta bed (half asleep and tired eyes and all) I would get more productive hours in the day since the run would wake me up. As it stands, from when I first wake up until I really FEEL awake usually takes me about an hour.
We have a treadmill and recumbent exercise bike. We have added shelves to each to hold our laptops so we can surf the net while exercising. I can walk at up to 3 mph and still type reasonably well.
So I hop on the treadmill in the morning and boot up the computer, check email, read my favourite blogs and post. I find the 30 - 50 minutes I would usually spend (waste?) online in the morning is now more productive. Besides, while I can eat and surf at the same time, I can’t eat, surf and walk at the same time. So there is less time for me to intake calories.
I put my laptop on the shelf before bed, along with a full water bottle. That means if I want to go online without exercising, I have to make a conscious decision to do so. I also lay out my workout clothes but other people I know sleep in their workout clothes, again, forcing a conscious decision to *not* workout when they roll out of bed in the morning.
I’ve slept in workout clothes before. But for me, that was when I was doing organized morning runs with other people and it allowed me to get 3 more minutes of sleep. (Up and out the door!) Oh what I wouldn’t do for extra sleep when I was single!
Canadian Kate - if I could get my laptop situated so I could do stuff while exercising, I’d be 140 pounds in no time! LOL.
Sherri - my workout clothes are my pajamas, so I luck out there. At some point, I’d like to jog in the morning so I like the sleeping in workout clothes idea.
I like exercising in the morning, starting the day off with a great walk really gets the blood moving.
But, some days it’s just not possible, so on those days, I exercise in the afternoon. It has its benefits, too………….:)
I think it depends on lots of stuff, like your exercise of choice and where you live. When I’m training for a running event, I have no problem running at night, but that is because of where I live; however, when I’m cycling, I would much rather ride early in the morning.