According to a new American headed by Dr. Willis, it has been found that people who exercise in the morning seem to lose more weight than people completing the same workouts later in the day.
These findings help shed light on the vexing issue of why some people shed considerable weight with exercise and other almost none.
The study adds to the growing body of science suggesting that the timing of various activities, including exercise, could affect how those activities affect us.
The relationship between exercise and body weight is somewhat befuddling.
Multiple past studies show that a majority of people who take up exercise to lose weight drop fewer pounds than would be expected, given how many calories they are burning during their workouts.
Some gain weights. But a few respond quite well, shedding pound after pound with the same exercise regimen that prompts others to add inches.
The Midwest Trial 2, was conducted in the University of Kansas, U.S. on how regular, supervised exercise influences body weight.
The trial involved 100 overweight, previously inactive young men and women who were made to work out five times a week at a physiology lab, jogging or otherwise sweating until they had burned up to 600 calories per session.
After 10 months of this regimen, almost everyone had dropped pounds.
But the extent of their losses fluctuated wildly, even though everyone was doing the same supervised workout.
A team of researchers started brainstorming what could be responsible for the enormous variability in the weight loss.
They hit upon activity timing. They decided to do a Follow -up study of the Mid Trial 2.
In this new stud, the Mid West Trial 2 Follow up study the researchers now studied a team of participants who could visit the gym whenever they wished between 7 a.m. and 7p.m.
They also tracked everyone's calorie intakes and daily movement habits throughout the 10 months.
They knew, too, whether and by now much people's weights had changed.
Now, they checked weight change against exercise schedules and quickly noticed a consistent pattern.
Those people who usually worked out before noon had lost more weight, on average, than the men and woman
who typically exercised after 3p.m.?
The researchers uncovered a few other, possibly relevant differences between the morning and late-day
exercisers. The early-exercise group tended to be slightly more active throughout the day, taking
more steps in total than those who worked out later.
They also ate less.
These factors may cumulatively have contributed to the striking differences in how many pounds people lost, Dr. Willis says.
Thus, it seems that people who worked out before noon lost more weight, on average, than those who typically exercised after 3 p.m.
But Dr. Willis also points out that most of those who worked out later in the day did lost weight, even if not as much as the larkish exercisers, and almost certainly became healthier.
"I would not want anyone to think that it's not worth exercising if you can't do it first thing in the morning," he says.
"Any exercise, at any time of day, is going to be better than none."