Exercising more often can help you to stay in shape, increase your body strength, and stamina and overall improvement in your physical health.
In this post, I’ll specifically cover the health benefits of morning exercise before breakfast.
Here’s a short overview of how exercising in the morning on an empty stomach benefits you:
Working out before breakfast boosts your metabolism and can give better results when it comes to losing body fat. Exercising on an empty stomach is also helpful to burn your unused calories and keep you active throughout the day.
Read on to find out all the other benefits.
9 Benefits Of Morning Exercise Before Breakfast
1. Effective for burning fat.
In the morning our body doesn’t have much sugar, so when we exercise in the morning before breakfast – it uses a portion of our stored body fat. Therefore it’s a fast and effective way to burn your extra body fat.
Doing some specific exercise in your morning workout like – cardio, aerobic exercises or simply running in the morning can further increase the fat-burning process.
Related: Should you exercise before or after breakfast?
2. Exercising before breakfast boosts your metabolism.
Plus you get the advantage of the ‘after-burn.’
During a morning workout, your body’s metabolism increases and it remains high for a while after the exercise. A high metabolism rate helps your body to burn more calories than usual.
That’s why fitness experts recommend exercising in the morning if someone wants to lose weight or body fat.
You can only have this process if you exercise in the morning empty stomach or workout after fasting for five to seven hours.
Note: Most people can do some bodyweight exercises or cardio on an empty stomach. But if you have any health condition that requires you to eat something before exercising then do consult with your physician whether you can or can’t exercise in the morning before eating breakfast.
3. Improves your mood.
Completing a morning workout before breakfast can give you a feeling of accomplishment. It’s good for your mental health and can help you to better start your day.
In the morning we wake up with less tension and stress. When you work out early in the morning, you will have a better focus on your workout and thus it becomes much more effective.
By stimulating your body completely, you will feel relaxed and it will lighten your mood for the day.
Related articles:
- The benefits of home workouts
- Benefits of running in the morning
- Home workout secrets to get better results from exercising at home
- 12 Best exercise tips for busy people
4. You will stay active.
If you feel less energetic during the day even after having sufficient sleep then exercising in the morning can help you to stay active during the day.
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A good morning exercise burns your unused calories and helps your body to perform its normal activities. It enables good blood flow in your body. So, when you work out in the morning you will stay active during the day and it can potentially help you increase your productivity.
5. Protects You from Diabetic.
Living a sedentary lifestyle or doing less physical work increases the chances of having diabetes. Exercising in the morning helps to manage your glucose level throughout the day.
Here’s what CAD recommends ‘150 minutes a week of moderate to vigorous exercise.” source – Diabetes.ca
Also, anaerobic exercises should be included in the workout routine to keep your muscle mass even after 45.
6. You won’t miss your breakfast again.
Many people don’t eat an adequate amount of nutritious food in their breakfast. Sometimes they ignore it or supplement it with a protein bar.
A good breakfast is important to maintain good health. Your breakfast provides a major portion of the energy that you need to do various activities during the day.
By working out before breakfast you will be damn hungry to eat your breakfast and you will never miss it again.
7. Better sleep at night.
An early morning workout gives you a fresh start to the day. After completing your workout and a nutritious breakfast you will feel active and energetic during the day.
This can help you to finish your work faster.
Because of the exertion from your workout and working throughout the day, at night – you will find it easier to fall asleep.
8. Good for your overall health.
Waking up early in the morning and exercising can help you improve your overall body fitness. Regular morning exercise can help you to increase your body flexibility, tone your body, and improve your physical appearance & immunity system.
Daily morning exercise before breakfast can also help you to develop better self-discipline.
9. Good for making exercising a daily habit.
It’s no secret that exercise helps us to live a healthy and active lifestyle. But a lot of people struggle to exercise more often.
It becomes much easier if you can make exercising a daily habit.
Exercising in the morning before breakfast helps you to give more importance to your workout. It can help you to make exercising a daily habit.
If you are someone who has less time to exercise then you can read – the best exercise tips for busy people
Best Practices And Tips For Morning Exercise Before Breakfast
Before you start working out in the morning, consider these things:
- Always try to have at least six to seven hours of sleep. You can only wake up early and get enough time to exercise if you sleep early.
- Prepare your breakfast before you go to your bed or make sure you can have it easily within 30 to 45 minutes after workout.
- Start slow, and don’t overdo things. Give your body enough time to adapt to your morning routine.
- When you are just starting working out, don’t expect too much to happen overnight.
- Try different exercises and then choose what works best for you.
Exercises you can do in your morning workout
You can try many exercises in the morning. If you don’t do weight training then you can do running, jogging, stretching, bodyweight squats, jumping jacks, yoga and many more, see this post to get an idea about a morning workout routine.
In the beginning, when you start exercising in the morning – try to exercise for 15-20 minutes. It will help you be more consistent with your workout routine. After some weeks when your body stamina improves – you can gradually increase your workout time if you want to.
Also on different days focus on different exercises that focus on – different muscle groups to get better results. Here’s an article where you will find more tips on home workouts.
For example – Monday you can warm up and stretch for 5 minutes, do other bodyweight exercises for 5 to 7 minutes and run for 8 to 12 minutes. On the other day – warm-up and stretching for 5 minutes, do bodyweight exercise for 10 minutes and run for 5 minutes.
Adjust it according to your fitness goals.
How long your morning workout should be?
If you only work out in the morning then – you will see better results if you workout for 20-25 minutes or more. If your body’s stamina is not sufficient to exercise for 20 minutes, you can start exercising for 10-12 minutes in the beginning. You can then gradually increase your workout session time as your stamina and body strength improve over time.
If you also work out at other times during the day or go to the gym 2-4 times per week, and want to exercise in the morning – then you can exercise in the morning for 8-15 minutes.
Working out in the morning is a very good option for someone who has a full-time job.
Is it ok to do push-ups before breakfast?
First of all push up is a great exercise because it utilizes your body weight plus activates many muscles of your body at once. Especially upper body muscles.
Yes, you can do push-ups before breakfast. But also consider this. In the morning all muscles are not activated properly. When you warm up or stretch they get activated. If you want to do push-ups in the morning warm up your body for two minutes and stretch a little bit. Now go to the push-up position and do 3 to 6 pushups. ( you can touch your chest on the floor and wait for two seconds and complete the set). It will help you to activate and warm up your muscles. Wait for 30 seconds to a minute and now do push-ups until failure.
Following this method, you will be able to do more pushups in the morning than before.
Here are some posts that talk about pushups in more detail:
- Benefits of doing push up in the morning
- Best time to do push-ups in a day + push up routine (Different times for students, when you have a full-time job & when you work from home.)
FAQ about exercising before breakfast
Should I exercise before breakfast?
There are many advantages to exercising before breakfast. According to your personal preference you can choose when to exercise. Exercising before breakfast is a great way to boost your metabolism. It can also help you with weight loss and keep you active for the day.
But you should only work out on an empty stomach if your body permits it. If you have any type of health problem then it will be best if you discuss it with your physician.
What if I work out in the evening. Should I exercise in the morning then?
If you are going to the gym in the evening you can also exercise in the morning. But you should exercise for 5-7 minutes of freehand exercise and stretch.
How much you should exercise in the morning also depends on the type of exercise routine you are following in the gym.
Many people like to work out 30-45 minutes in the gym 4-5 days every week. Some of them like to do cardio in the morning (2-3 days.) You can do the same. There are many health benefits of running. So, even if you are going to the gym; you might want to run before breakfast 2-3 days every week.
My Quick Morning Exercise Routine
This morning routine can take 10-15 minutes. But if you want to exercise a little bit more – then you can increase the number of reps or increase the number of sets. It’s a short morning workout routine because I also exercise for 2-3 days in the evening.
If you only exercise in the morning – exercise for 20 minutes or more to get better results.
My exercises go like this…
I start my morning workout session with stretching. I do it for 2 to 3 minutes (keep it simple.)
- First I start it with neck rotation, ( clockwise and anticlockwise), then I move my neck up and down, right and left a couple of times. (It will help you to avoid sleepiness.)
- After that, I do shoulder rotation (place both your palms on your shoulder facing downward and start rotating forward 10 – 15 times then rotate backwards and repeat one-two times.
- When you finish your shoulder rotation then move to arm rotation.
- Now do side bends from your hip. Left and right 10 – 15 times, forward-backwards 5 – 10 times.
Remember when you start loving your morning workout and do it daily you will be surprised to see all the good changes in your body.
Let’s move on to the next exercise.
- Hip rotation for 25 seconds.
- Now it’s time to focus on the lower parts of your body.
- Perform bodyweight lunges and squats 10 -15 times. Jump squat 10 – 15 times.
- The last exercises of this short morning workout comprise planks and pushups.
Also read: This is why I started exercising 3 hours instead of 8 hours in a week.
I love doing pushups because at a time it engages many muscle groups. If you are just starting and can’t do a normal pushup then in pushup position place your knees on the ground for some extra support.
Gradually you will see an improvement in your body stamina. Just make sure you are exercising 3-4 times each week.
Some of the benefits of exercising in the morning I noticed personally
- It helped me to stay productive during the day.
- I don’t feel sleepy during the day.
- Helps me to maintain good body posture.
- Improved my body flexibility.
- Good sleep at night.
Read next: 10 Healthy lifestyle tips for busy people.
Can I do pushups in the morning? Normally I workout in the evening but i would like to do morning pushups.
Hey Fabius, you can do pushups in the morning. I have written a detailed article on doing pushups in the morning. In that post, I covered all the important things you need to focus while doing pushups in the morning.
I’m surprised by seeing all those benefits. I’ll try to do more workouts in the morning to grow my body size and muscles.
Best of luck for improving your physique. Morning is a great time to exercise. 🙂