Does anyone know why....

christenwypy
christenwypy Posts: 335 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I notice that if I work out in the morning on an empty stomach it feels so much easier than if I wait until later in the day, even if I wait several hours from eating. When I workout later it feels like more of a struggle and I get tired faster. Does anyone know if there is a reason for this?

Replies

  • LyndaBSS
    LyndaBSS Posts: 6,964 Member
    If you exercise later in the day, you have a lot of food in your stomach and digestive tract. Depending on what you're eating, it could make you tired and sluggish.
  • mom23mangos
    mom23mangos Posts: 3,070 Member
    I have a really hard time working out later in the day after I've eaten. I do much better first thing in the morning fasted.
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,013 Member
    Everyone has different biological rhythms and different tolerances for empty stomach/full stomach exercise.

    It could be that you naturally have more energy in the AM or that your body expends more energy digesting what you've eaten than you can be comfortable exercising through.
  • HoneyBadger302
    HoneyBadger302 Posts: 1,970 Member
    Eating too much definitely affects my energy and endurance levels, even if it's been several hours. I have confirmed that my bod is this way at a recent race weekend when I ate too much for lunch (a large-ish, but normal, meal) and then had a race about 2.5 hours later. My energy was sapped, and it even felt like much of it was due to digesting such a large meal.

    A small meal/large snack is a much wiser choice for me when my schedule requires activity after lunch - which is, historically, what I've done, but I was just hungry and thought "hey, there's plenty of time between now and then. Didn't work out so well, won't do that again.

    Evenings I'm generally just worn out from a full day - some of it physical, most of it mental. While I don't think of working out as overly mentally taxing, I think there's just the willingness to push through that tends to diminish after a long day.
  • slbbw
    slbbw Posts: 329 Member
    I prefer the feeling of fasted workouts, but at least for running I tend to be faster in the evening even if it feels harder.

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