With the warmer summer months now not too far away, it seems as if more and more of us are stepping up our efforts in an attempt to burn fat, build muscle, and just generally build ourselves a lean and aesthetically pleasing physique that we can display proudly in the hot sunshine. For anybody looking to get in shape, body fat is without question, public enemy number 1, 2, and 3. In order to burn body fat, we need to consume less calories, consume fresh, healthy, and natural produce, and get plenty of physical exercise. As far as fat burning exercises are concerned, cardio is without a doubt the most effective and most popular form of fat-burning exercise. Some people however, are not sure about when is the best time to actually perform cardio. Some say early, some say late, whilst others say it doesn’t matter. Well, to help get to the bottom of this once and for all, here’s a look at when (if any) is the best time of day to do cardio.
When is the most effective time of day to do cardio?
Unfortunately, like most things in life, things aren’t really black and white when answering this question as there are a number of factors to consider. We’d love to be able to tell you that 7am in the morning has been proven to burn twice as many calories as any other time in the day, but unfortunately we can’t. The reason for this is that there are personal human factors to consider. If you feel tired, sluggish, and lethargic in the morning, it would not be the best idea to head out and perform cardio. If you feel most energized and awake in the evening, perhaps the evening is the best time? To a certain degree it does come down to personal preferences and circumstances, although there is evidence to suggest that early in the morning can be pretty beneficial.
Why early in the morning?
Have you ever heard people talking about performing “fasted cardio”? If so, they’re basically talking about performing cardio on an empty stomach, other than a little water. Typically, most people will perform fasted cardio early in the morning because when they wake up, as they will have not eaten in at least seven hours, their stomachs will be completely empty. Fasted cardio is thought to be effective because as there is no energy in the form of calories from food available to the body, the harder it works, the more desperate it becomes for energy. It begins to panic and taps into the nearest available energy source, which just so happens to be your body fat. By doing this, we force our bodies into burning body fat for energy because there is literally nothing else available. In truth however, it isn’t the time of day that is effective, it’s simply the fact that the stomach is empty. If you went all day without eating and did cardio in the evening, you would still be performing fasted cardio, just at night instead of in the morning. In reality, cardio is effective at all times of the day and fasted cardio is certainly not the only method of burning body fat.
