It's no secret that trying to lose weight can be quite a challenge for many people, but when exactly you chose to exercise can have a big impact on this, scientists say. According to a new study, anyone hoping to shed a few pounds should aim to workout at a certain time of day - and it may be bad news for those who like a lie-in of a morning.
Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and University of Copenhagen in Denmark have found that working out early in the morning could help in making losing weight much easier. Their study discovered that by exercising earlier in the day, this can increase fat metabolism, which is the rate at which you burn fat, Daily Record reports.
Results of the study have been published in the PNAS journal and show that mice that exercised during what would be the equivalent of a late morning for us kicked their metabolism into action much earlier in the day, in comparison to the one that were active in the evenings.
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Commenting on the findings, Professor Juleen R. Zierath from the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery and the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Karolinska Institutet, said: “Our results suggest that late morning exercise could be more effective than late evening exercise in terms of boosting the metabolism and the burning of fat.
"If this is the case, they could prove of value to people who are overweight. The right timing seems to be important to the body’s energy balance and to improving the health benefits of exercise. But more studies are needed to draw any reliable conclusions about the relevance of our findings to humans."
Even though there are many similarities between mice and human, it's important to bare in mind that such rodents are nocturnal. The study follows a previous analysis, published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology last year, which found that exercising between the hours of 8am and 11am was linked to the lowest risk of heart disease and stroke.
Author of the analysis, Gali Albalak, from the Leiden University Medical Centre, said: "Our findings add to the evidence on the health benefits of being physically active by suggesting that morning activity, and especially late morning, may be the most advantageous."
In an interview with Webmd, author Paul Arciero, PhD, says if people are more focused on building upper-body strength and power, that they will probably get better results from training in the afternoon or evening. In terms of fat loss, a study by Skidmore College shows better results for women who did morning workouts.
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