A lot of my patients ask me about the best time of day to exercise. It’s a good question, and it’s because they want to maximize the fitness benefits and weight loss from their workouts. While it’s true that the time of day you work out matters, there’s not a good one-size-fits-all answer as to when that is. Because it depends on you, and all sorts of personal factors.

Here are some of the main things to think about when deciding on a fitness schedule:

Consistency Counts Most

The most important thing is simply getting enough physical activity consistently. That’s why it’s essential to have an exercise routine. There are some pros and cons to working out at different times of day, but ultimately, they pale in comparison to the benefits of just making sure you get regular exercise on an ongoing basis.

So, before we get into more details about choosing when to exercise, let’s get one thing clear: Whatever time of day most reliably lets you maintain your fitness routine is the best time of day for it.

When Do You Want to Exercise?

Different people prefer working out at different times. If you’re really not a morning person, forcing yourself out of bed at 4:30 am to get in a workout before getting the kids off to school and getting to the office isn’t a good idea. It makes exercising more of a chore, and you’ll resent it and end up hitting the snooze button too many times. It just won’t be sustainable.

Alternatively, if you’re physically and mentally exhausted after work, you might struggle to find the motivation to hit the gym afterwards. As you can see, this feeds right into the point I made above—that the most critical part is just figuring out when you’re most likely to stick with your workout based on your own body and preferences.

One Big Advantage to Morning Workouts

For many people, exercising in the morning is the surest way to reliably get in their daily physical activity. It’s mostly just a matter of checking it off the list before any of the other demands of the day manage to derail your schedule. If you work out first thing, there’s not much opportunity for other responsibilities to prevent it from ever happening.

If a workout is penciled in for your lunch break or right after work, a lot can come up that interferes with it. If, like so many of us, your days are often shaken up by last-minute errands, assignments, meetings, chauffeuring the kids around, or other surprises, your workouts are likely to get pushed out of the picture. And that’s no good.

One Big Advantage to Afternoon or Early Evening Workouts

Stress relief is a major benefit of regular exercise. A solid workout reduces stress and anxiety, helping prevent their negative health effects and manage symptoms like headaches, chronic aches and pain, tension, insomnia, low sex drive, difficulty concentrating, and so on.

While you enjoy this benefit no matter what time of day you work out, many people find it’s most powerful after the workday ends. If your occupation, workplace, tasks, or boss leave you feeling seriously stressed out, some rigorous exercise is an amazingly effective way to undo it and refresh yourself, body, mind, and spirit.

Plan Around Meal Times and Bedtime

Some other items on your daily schedule affect when you should and shouldn’t exercise. It’s smart to put at least an hour and a half between any large meal and a workout. There’s increased blood flow in your digestive tract while you’re digesting food, but you want that blood flowing freely to your muscles during strenuous or prolonged physical activity.

Also, the physiological effects of working out will interfere with your ability to fall asleep. In general, it’s best to finish exercising at least three hours before bedtime. That leaves you with plenty of time for your heart rate to slow again and for your body to fully cool down.

What About Other People?

Other people’s schedules might affect your optimal schedule. For instance, if you prefer to work out with a partner, you’re much more likely to stay consistent and accountable with one. In such cases, it’s best to plan your exercise for a time of day when a friend, family member, or coworker is available to join you.

Another thing to think about might be the situation at the gym, the pool, or wherever you work out. Many public gyms are packed pretty full between 5:00 pm and 8:00 pm. If it’s hard to access your favorite equipment at certain times of day, or if you like to exercise when there aren’t too many other people around, this can influence when you want to perform your fitness routine.

What About the Weather?

I live in Central Florida, where the heat and humidity are significant factors through about half the year. And we have massive storms every afternoon to early evening all through the summer. If you live in a hot climate, early morning or evening workouts are often more enjoyable. Or, if you’re in a colder climate, that peak afternoon sun may feel really good. If you exercise outdoors, plan in accordance with the weather as needed.

Do It!

Again, nothing matters more than making sure you consistently fit in your fitness routine. Make it practical, make it pleasant, and make it a habit! Exercising regularly delivers so many health benefits, whatever time of day you do it. It’s simply doing it that counts most!

Exercise is divided into two broad categories: cardiovascular (cardio, also known as aerobic) and strength training. A lot of people prefer one and favor it or use it exclusively. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that, but they miss out on the benefits of the other type.

Some stick to one type because they believe doing both has negative effects that hinder their progress. But this isn’t the case, and they too unnecessarily forfeit some great fitness benefits.

The best exercise regimens incorporate both cardio and strength training exercises.

What Are Cardio and Strength Training?

Cardio is about elevating your heart rate to strengthen it, burn calories, and build endurance. Brisk walking, jogging, running, bicycling, swimming, jumping rope, step aerobics, and other exercises involving prolonged, highly active movements are cardiovascular workouts.

The main objective of strength training—like weight lifting and resistance training—is to build muscle mass. They break down your muscles, which then rebuild (provided you supply plenty of protein) just a little larger and stronger in an effort to prevent future damage.

Misunderstandings About Combining Both Types of Exercise

Because it’s better at burning calories, cardio is generally the go-to exercise for weight loss. People trying to lose weight may be afraid to do strength training because they think they’ll get bulkier.

But building muscle also helps you achieve and maintain a healthy body weight. The more muscular you are, the more efficiently you burn fat. And, while building muscle can slow weight loss or even increase your weight because it’s heftier than fat, you’re still developing a leaner, healthier body composition. Also, it takes most people a long time of serious strength training for their muscles to become so large and prominent that it creates a bulky appearance.

On the other side of the aisle, people trying to bulk up with strength training may believe that aerobic exercise burns muscle and holds back their gains.

While this is a possibility, it’s easily avoided if you know what you’re doing. Your body only starts to burn muscle for fuel as a last resort. It goes first to the calories recently consumed, so if you don’t strength train on an empty stomach, you won’t burn muscle during the workout. Furthermore, your body dips into fat stores before muscle.

There’s also a misconception that doing one type of exercise reduces the effectiveness of the other, especially if you do them the same day. Most modern studies have found no evidence to support this idea. Studies have examined doing cardio then strength training, and the other way around.

Benefits of Doing Both Types of Exercise

Aerobics and strength training each offer their own benefits. To name just some benefits of cardio, it helps you reach and maintain a healthy body weight; boost energy levels; strengthen the heart and lungs; lower blood pressure, bad (LDL) cholesterol, and triglycerides; build stamina and flexibility; increase circulation; reduce stress and anxiety; sleep better; and cut your risk of developing many diseases, including heart disease, certain cancers, type 2 diabetes, arthritis, dementia, and more.

Strength training offers many of the same benefits. While cardio is great for losing weight, strength training may do more for keeping it off in the long run since it boosts metabolism. Its also increases your strength, bone density, and energy. This type of exercise works wonders for improving your general body mechanics as well.

Combining both types in your routine maximizes the benefits and provides a more well-rounded workout. It creates a synergy, pushing you to new heights of fitness, health, and energetic living.

How to Include Cardio and Strength Training in a Regimen

You can find all sorts of theories and advice about how to safely and effectively incorporate both types of exercise in your routine. There’s no single right answer, though. A lot depends on individual factors.

What are your goals? If you’re mostly looking to lose weight, emphasize cardio; if you want a more muscular build, emphasize weight lifting and resistance training. Again, this doesn’t mean exclude the other. But it might, for example, make the difference between three days of cardio and two days of strength training per week, or vice versa.

Also, your body type plays a role in creating an individualized exercise plan. Different people need to focus on different areas more or less than others. Different people have different metabolisms, some build muscle mass faster than others, and even the exercises you enjoy most and least should factor in to help keep you motivated.

Some people are able to do cardio and strength training in the same day. Typically, if you’re doing that, do the cardio first. For most people, it’s harder to keep up the pace and duration of cardio after you’ve hit your muscles hard with strength training.

But don’t do too much in one day. That puts you at risk for overuse injuries. It’s probably best to alternate between cardio and strength training by day. It’s important to give your body time to rest between workouts. Muscles need time to rebuild after strength training. Muscles, joints, and ligaments all need downtime between aerobic workouts.

Getting Started with Cardio and Strength Training

It’s crucial to exercise safely and with proper warm-ups, stretching, and techniques. Also, you have to build up gradually; starting too aggressively risks serious injuries and can even jeopardize your heart.

Talk to your doctor about a safe, progressive regimen. A professional trainer is a great investment in your fitness and health. They help you learn the right ways to do everything so that your workouts safely move you steadily toward your goals. A skilled trainer keeps you goal-oriented and motivated, while providing support when things aren’t going quite like you want them to (which happens to everyone occasionally—it’s just part of the process).

Whenever people talk about weight loss, health, and fitness, the talk tends to center on exercise. And there’s good reason for that; obviously, physical activity is essential to getting in shape and staying there. Stretching, though, is so often relegated to a quick mention—something like, “Also, remember to stretch before and after your workout.”

Stretching deserves more than that. It may not burn calories, bulk up your muscle mass, or get your heart pumping, but it definitely contributes to your general health, wellness, and fitness in a variety of ways. So let’s talk some more about it.

Benefits of Stretching

Here’s a quick look at just some of the ways stretching to keep your muscles loose and limber helps you feel—and be—fitter and healthier. Stretching:

• Reduces the risk of soreness, cramps, pulls, tears, and other exercise-related discomfort and injuries
• Minimizes recuperation time after a strenuous workout
• Increases your flexibility and rang of motion
• Enhances blood flow and oxygenation to muscles (which itself has many benefits, like promoting cell growth and organ function, reducing strain on the heart, helping normalize blood pressure, and more)
• Increases energy levels
• Boosts stamina and performance
• Contributes to good posture
• Reduces stress
• Relieves aches and pains
• Improves mood and general feeling of wellness
• Promotes relaxation and better sleep

Stretching Tips

Spend some time learning safe and effective stretching techniques. Talk to your doctor, trainer, or experienced workout buddy, or read up on some reputable health and fitness sites. Here are some important things to keep in mind:

• Don’t stretch before warming up with some gentle activity like a short walk
• Don’t stretch first thing in the morning; wait till you’ve been up and moving around a while
• Stretch before and after a workout or sport performance
• Stretch before bed and when you’re feeling stressed
• Hone in on major muscle groups (neck, lower back, hips, thighs, calves)
• Pay extra attention to the muscles and joints you use most (including at work, not just during workouts)
• Learn stretches specific to the sport(s) you play
• Hold stretches for 30 seconds
• You should feel tension, but not pain; ease up if it hurts
• Never bounce while stretching
• Don’t hold your breath while stretching; take deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth
• Gentle movement-based stretching (think tai chi or yoga) is fantastic for you—body, mind, and soul

A Few Words of Caution

Even though stretching is a low-impact, natural way to improve your health and fitness, that doesn’t mean there are no risks associated with it. Improper technique and being too aggressive can cause injuries, as can stretching “cold” muscles before a warm-up.

If you have any injury or physical health condition, first talk to your doctor about safely stretching. Sometimes, the wrong stretch or the wrong timing can make a problem worse. Also, remember that stretching only reduces the risk of injuries—it doesn’t make you immune to them. Proper exercise techniques, common-sense safety measures, giving muscles adequate time to rest between workouts, and other smart practices are important.

As you know, exercise is essential to getting in shape, losing weight, reducing your risk of various diseases, having energy, and maintaining a toned appearance and a healthy body weight. Losing weight is all about burning more calories than you consume, so it requires either eating less, getting more physical activity, or—ideally—both. 

There are two main classes of exercise: aerobic (also known as cardiovascular, or cardio for short), and strength training. Cardio exercises are based on movement. Jogging, swimming, bicycling, step aerobics, jumping jacks, and other workouts that elevate your heart rate are examples, and they’re best for improving heart health and burning calories. 

Strength training includes more stationary exercises that break down and rebuild your muscle fibers. Weight lifting and resistance training (like using resistance bands or your own body’s weight to work muscle groups) are examples. These don’t burn calories like aerobic exercises, but they’re still useful for getting toned and achieving and maintaining a healthy weight. 

How Lifting Weights Helps 

When you lift weights, the strain actually breaks down your muscles. Your body then uses protein to rebuild the muscles bigger and stronger to make them more resilient. That’s why it’s important to have high protein intake when lifting weights; otherwise, your body can’t rebuild and grow the muscles. 

As you build your muscles, they replace fat stores in your body, increasing your metabolism so you burn fat more efficiently. This is the premise for all those weight training ads that tell you to “Turn your body into a fat-burning machine!” The more muscular you are, the more efficiently your body burns fat; the more efficiently it burns it, the less you store as body fat. 

So strength training has its place along with calorie-burning cardio when you’re trying to lose weight. One thing to note here, though: Muscle is denser and heavier than fat. You can’t just go by the number on the scale to determine how successful your efforts are. 

Especially in the beginning of your new exercise regimen, as you replace fat with muscle, it can slow down how many pounds you’re losing. Depending on your body condition and how overweight you are, you might even gain weight as you gain muscle. But you’re still becoming more lean and more fit, and that’s what counts. 

Starting a Weight Lifting Regimen 

Lifting weights may look easy, but it’s not. Technique is incredibly important. If you lift incorrectly, you won’t see results. Also, you put yourself at risk for strains, sprains, pulls, tears, repetitive use injuries, and other physical trauma. You must incorporate numerous different weight lifting exercises as well to target different muscle groups throughout your body. 

You also have to start slowly, with few repetitions and using fairly light weights at first. Gradually build up the number of reps you execute and to using heavier weights. In the beginning, don’t lift more than once or twice per week, and never do it two days in a row. Your muscles require time to rest and rebuild between workouts. 

I highly recommend finding a professional trainer to teach you proper warmups, stances, and weight lifting techniques. At the very least, get instruction from someone you know who’s an experienced lifter and whose physique shows that they know what they’re doing. 

Consult your doctor before beginning any exercise regimen, too. A medical professional who’s familiar with your general health and any conditions you may have should advise you on how to safely begin and build up a fitness routine. 

Protein Needs and Weight Lifting for Weight Loss 

As mentioned above, your body needs protein to rebuild muscle fibers when strength training. There’s a lot of conflicting research—and a lot of differing expert opinions—on how much protein to shoot for. Generally, if you’re just starting out, aim to consume about 1.1 grams of protein per kilogram (or 0.5 grams per pound) of body weight daily. Further down the line, you might up your intake to somewhere between 1.1 to 2.2 grams of protein per kilogram (0.5 to 1 gram per pound).

Because you’re trying to lose weight, and because it’s healthier, get your protein from sources low in saturated fat and calories. Skinless poultry, fish, shellfish, nuts, seeds, soy, and low-fat or fat-free dairy are good protein sources. If possible, get protein from whole foods rather than supplements. 

Answers also vary regarding how to time your protein consumption with weight lifting. If you’re eating enough protein over the course of the day, you should be fine. However, your muscle fibers seek protein’s amino acids shortly after a workout to start rebuilding. Eating a high-protein meal either shortly before or right after weight lifting may be beneficial. 

Get Started! 

Once you resolve to make a positive change like lifting weights to get toned, lose weight, and improve your health and energy levels, and after talking to your doctor and finding someone to help you, jump in! Don’t get overwhelmed by long-term goals or worrying about what you can’t do. Start small, even if it’s just a few dumbbell bicep curls one day in your first week. 

Starting small is better than not starting at all. Develop one little habit at first if that’s what it takes, and then step things up when it’s well ingrained. There’s a cliché about how even the longest journeys start with a single step, and it’s totally true. 

Good luck, and enjoy building your new, healthier physique!