Research

Hormonal

Evening exercise training (18:30 hours) improves glycaemic control and reverses high-fat diet-induced metabolic perturbations in overweight/obese men, whereas morning exercise (06:30 hours) does not.

If your goal is optimizing blood sugar control and metabolic health, especially if you consume a high-fat diet, try to schedule your workouts for the evening (around 18:30). Morning exercise still improves your heart and lung fitness, but it may not offer the same metabolic protection against poor diet choices. If you must exercise in the morning, be mindful that it might not counteract the negative metabolic effects of a high-fat diet as effectively as evening training.

GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
However, improvements in glycaemic control and partial reversal of HFD-induced changes in metabolic profiles were only observed when participants exercise trained in the evening.
Trine Moholdt et al. · Diabetologia · 2021

Why this rating

Randomized controlled trial with controlled diet, though small sample size (n=24) and short duration (5 days exercise).

Source

The effect of morning vs evening exercise training on glycaemic control and serum metabolites in overweight/obese men: a randomised trial

Trine Moholdt et al. · Diabetologia · 2021

DOI 10.1007/s00125-021-05477-5

rct · n=24Cited 107×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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