So I know it's never easy to get up in the morning and start a workout. All this week I've been setting my alarm a half an hour early to exercise. I did everything I could think of to make me want to get up: sleeping in a sports bra, setting a magazine open right where I would see it first thing when I woke up to a workout of the month, even bargaining with myself ("Okay, exercise now, and I can have a Dove chocolate!"). All that ended up happening was me hitting the snooze button, several times. If anything I'm sleeping later than usual now which, in retrospect, isn't such a bad thing. I got nine hours of sleep Thursday night, which is more than I usually get in two nights put together, which is kind of fantastic.
But what I'm getting at here is that it really doesn't matter when you exercise: morning, noon, or even night. When you exercise in the morning, you do set your metabolism humming for the rest of the day, but noon and night exercising have their merits too. In fact, the New York Times printed in December that exercising in the afternoon might actually be the best time. It helps right our circadian rhythms, which can decrease the risks of obesity, cancer, diabetes, memory loss, and depression (More info). But working out at night isn't nearly as bad as people have always said. In fact, people who do a hardcore workout at night, working up a sweat and getting their heart pounding, are sleeping better than those who don't. Makes sense; after a workout like that you're so tired you can sleep straight through the night.
So I think for now, I'll stick to my midday workouts, along with my weightlifting regime at night. And in the morning, I'll be cuddled up under a blanket for half an hour long. Not a bad deal there. How about you? When do you workout?
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