Do Morning Workouts Boost Your Metabolism More Than Nights?

When weight loss is the goal, every boost in metabolism helps. Exercise can help promote this effect. But the question many have is whether morning workouts are better at increasing metabolism than evening workouts. Before we talk about the answer, it helps to understand how exercise impacts metabolism in general.

Exercise and Metabolism

It’s well-known that exercise boosts metabolism. In fact, any increase in physical activity can help the body burn more calories. How does this work?

Research published in 2020 explains a complex process. When engaging in aerobic exercise, the cellular activity of a certain DICER protein (type III endoribonuclease) is increased. This increases cellular RNA fragments known as microRNAs. Together, both reduce the ability of fat cells to utilize glucose and improve oxidative metabolism. This gives the muscle enough available substrates to support proper metabolic response. 

What does this mean in simpler terms? Exercise kicks off a series of effects that help increase metabolism. And when metabolism is increased, it becomes easier to lose weight.

The thing about exercise, though, is that not every workout is the same. A light workout is not the same as a tough workout, for instance. The harder you exercise, the higher your metabolism goes. And a higher metabolism is better for burning calories. 

This means that an intense workout will burn more calories while a less intense workout will burn fewer calories. Makes sense. But what about exercise timing? How does when you work out impact metabolic rate?

Do Morning Workouts Increase Your Metabolism More Than Nights?

If you want to lose weight, some suggest that morning exercise is better at boosting metabolism than evening exercise. One explanation is that working out in a fasted state, such as after not eating since the night before, can cause metabolism to spike during your morning exercise session. Another is that exercising in the morning keeps metabolism elevated throughout the day, resulting in more calories burned.

The trouble with these assumptions is that they’re not supported by research. To be clear, they aren’t dis-supported either. In other words, research on exercise timing and its impact on metabolism is lacking. This leaves this question unanswered within the scientific world.

Instead, many personal training professionals agree that consistent exercise is more important than exercise timing. As long as clients are working out with regularity, they’ll continue to get closer to their fitness and weight loss goals. At the same time, there are a few reasons why clients may want to do their workout in the morning hours.

Benefits of a Morning Workout

Scheduling your exercise sessions for first thing in the day provides many benefits. Here are a few to consider.

• You feel more accomplished. It always feels good to wipe tasks off your to-do list. When you do your workout in the morning, this creates an accomplished feeling at the start of your day. The more accomplished you feel, the greater your motivation. So, working out in the morning may help promote other positive weight loss behaviors, such as eating a nutritious breakfast at home versus grabbing fast food on your way to work.

• You can’t be sidetracked by unforeseen circumstances. Any number of things can prevent you from an evening workout. You might have to work overtime. Your kids may have an afterschool event that causes you to miss your nighttime exercise session. One review shares that workout adherence is better with morning sessions. Subsequently, this promotes better weight management.

• The gym is quieter. Insights provided by 24/7 Fitness indicate that the gym is busiest between 9 am and 5 pm. Get your workout in before this and you’re less likely to have to wait for equipment. The gym environment is also likely quieter, making it easier to focus on building muscle or burning calories.

• Your daytime energy levels will rise. Do you notice that your energy dwindles as the day goes on? A morning workout helps change this. When you do your exercise first thing, you’ll likely notice that you have more energy later in the day. More energy means that you get more done. Your productivity increases solely because you did your workout early on.

How to Get into the Habit of Morning Exercise

If you’re not a morning person, the idea of becoming a morning exerciser may seem next to impossible. But you can develop a beginning-of-the-day exercise habit by doing a few simple things.

Set your exercise clothes out the night before, for instance. This way, you’re ready to go. If you plan to work out at the gym, pack your bag before going to bed. Include all of your gym essentials and set the bag by the door so all you have to do is grab it on your way out.

It’s also beneficial to get adequate sleep. When you’re tired and your circadian rhythm is out of whack, it can decrease your energy level. Less energy can make it harder to do a morning workout. Try to go to bed and get up at relatively the same time each day. Set your bedroom up so it helps you stay asleep. Reducing light and noise are a good start.

If the idea of working out every morning for the rest of your life feels overwhelming, only commit to morning exercise for one week. Do it for seven days and see how it goes. If you don’t like it, you go back to a nighttime workout. Figuring out what is best for you is the key to developing an exercise habit.

An Early Morning Workout for Beginners

What does a good morning routine look like? Beginner exercises should start slow. Aim to do a workout routine that gets the heart rate up for just 10 minutes. Once you’re more used to morning exercise, you can increase your time. 

You don’t have to jump right into high intensity exercise right out of bed either. Even a low intensity workout first thing in the morning can increase your calorie burn.

This might involve going for a 10-minute walk around the neighborhood or walking in place while watching the morning news. Throw in crunches and planks during commercials to get a good muscle workout.

Additional Ways to Get a Morning Metabolism Boost

What are some other things you can do boost metabolism earlier in the day?

• Engage in high intensity interval training (HIIT). High intensity training kicks metabolism into high gear. Add a HIIT workout into your morning sessions. HIIT helps promote the afterburn effect, which means greater calorie burn all day long.

• Make weight training a priority. Strength training builds muscle mass. It also increases muscle strength. But strength and muscle gain aren’t the only reasons to work with weights. Muscle burns more calories than fat. So, weight training turns your metabolism into a hotter-burning furnace.

• Eat a breakfast high in protein. Protein is known for boosting metabolism. When planning your breakfast, save all extra calories for this macronutrient. Eggs, meat, cottage cheese, beans, and legumes are all good protein sources.

• Pay attention to calories consumed the night before. Research has found that what you eat at night can affect your metabolism the following morning. For instance, one study noted that consuming chocolate milk before bedtime was likely to increase resting metabolic rate during a morning workout. Another study connected nighttime casein milk protein intake with a higher morning metabolism.

Weight loss isn’t just about working out in the morning versus the evening. It also involves more than reducing calories consumed. To lose weight (and keep it off) requires getting your head in the right space. It involves changing your behaviors so they support your weight loss goals. 

Learn how to help clients lose weight more effectively by becoming a Health Coach. ISSA offers Health Coach certification. This course teaches you how to create a mindset that leads to fat loss. You’ll also learn how to keep clients motivated through the entire weight loss process.

References

Brandão, B., Madsen, S., Rabiee, A., Oliverio, M., Ruiz, G., & Ferrucci, D. et al. (2020). Dynamic changes in DICER levels in adipose tissue control metabolic adaptations to exercise. Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences, 117(38), 23932-23941. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2011243117

Schumacher, L. M., Thomas, J. G., Raynor, H. A., Rhodes, R. E., & Bond, D. S. (2020). Consistent Morning Exercise May Be Beneficial for Individuals With Obesity. Exercise and sport sciences reviews, 48(4), 201–208. https://doi.org/10.1249/JES.0000000000000226

What Are The New Peak Gym Times? | 24/7 Fitness. 247fitness.co. (2021). Retrieved 10 June 2022, from https://247fitness.co/blog/new-peak-gym-times.

Michael J. Ormsbee, Katherine A. Gorman, Elizabeth A. Miller, Daniel A. Baur, Lisa A. Eckel, Robert J. Contreras, Lynn B. Panton, and Maria T. Spicer. Nighttime feeding likely alters morning metabolism but not exercise performance in female athletes. Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism. 41(7): 719-727. https://doi.org/10.1139/apnm-2015-0526

Madzima, T., Melanson, J., Black, J., & Nepocatych, S. (2018). Pre-Sleep Consumption of Casein and Whey Protein: Effects on Morning Metabolism and Resistance Exercise Performance in Active Women. Nutrients, 10(9), 1273. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu10091273