Morning workouts are a fantastic way to start your day and excellent for weight management.

Morning workouts are a fantastic way to start your day and excellent for weight management. Getting the recommended 30 minutes of exercise each day can be difficult for many of us. Between juggling family priorities and working your paid job, you are more likely to find an excuse to skip the gym. However, making it a habit to exercise right after you get up in the morning might just be the ultimate solution to keep yourself motivated.

Getting your workout done in the morning often results in working out more overall per week. Typically, morning is the time of day when people have the least amount of obligations that may prevent them from getting their workout in.  If you wait until later in the day, something might come up prohibiting you from working out or making it easier for you to bail.

Plus, morning workouts help you to boost your metabolism early, so you burn more calories during the day, as opposed to when you are sleeping. You’re also more likely to burn fat. Research shows when you’re fasting and exercising (ie, haven’t eaten breakfast yet) you burn fat stores instead of carbohydrates from food. But it also motivates you to be healthier. A recent study found that after a 45-minute morning workout, women were more likely to eat less for breakfast and make healthier food choices. Moreover, they also increased their physical activity throughout the day.

Planning on a morning workout may motivate you to get to bed earlier, so those early mornings may actually result in more sleep at night. Getting enough sleep is crucial when it comes to weight management. Research has shown that people crave unhealthy food when they are sleep-deprived because levels of leptin, a hormone that tells your brain that you are full, drop by 18 percent while levels of ghrelin, which stimulates appetite, increase 28 percent. Lack of sleep also raises the stress hormone cortisol, which can lead to overeating as well.

While it may seem that morning is the best time to work out, some of us just aren’t morning people. Nighttime workouts can help manage stress levels, which can boost your progress toward your weight management goals.  Working out helps eliminate the stress hormone, cortisol, which has been linked to an increase in belly fat.  And remember, any workout is always better than no workout at all!