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Why Morning Exercise Is Best

It’s the time of the year when dietary temptations lurk around every corner of the hospital. And since completely abstaining is not always possible, the best antidote for this holiday deluge of inflammation is obvious: Exercise.

No doubt, within the boundaries of common sense, all exercise is good. But is there a best time of day to exercise?

Tara Parker-Pope’s New York Times piece suggests that the most “productive” time of day to exercise is before breakfast. In concisely reviewing a Belgian exercise physiology study, Ms. Parker-Pope points out that, in blunting the undesirable effects of a high fat and sugar diet, pre-breakast (fasting) exercise was metabolically more efficient than was exercise later in the day. That’s really good news for the overweight middle-agers who consistently say: “I really don’t eat very much. I must have a slow metabolism.”

Scientific studies are one thing, but are they validated in the court of real life? Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*

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