About.com explores the options
Unless is really cold (0 or below), really rainy (rare on Colorado’s Front Range) or really blizzarding (also rare, and when it is, shoveling is aerobic and strengthening), it’s morning for me. First I do a light workout at home, and then my neighbor, Vivian, and I go for a two-mile walk at 7:00 every weekday morning. I grab a pair of poles, and though I’ve offered her loaners, she walks empty-handed. We have been doing this for more than 15 years. But is it the “best” time of day to walk? For us it is, because neither of us generally has a conflict at that time of morning.
Wendy Baumgardner, About.com’s “walking guide,” tackled the topic a few months ago in a piece called “The Best Time of Day to Walk and Exercise.” According to her sources, researchers say 6:00 p.m. is ideal, and maybe it is for people not coming home from work (or not still working), not preparing dinner, not eating dinner, not urging children to get their homework done or anything else that generally happens in the early evening. Walking before the day gets away from many of us is ideal — and for Vivian and me, our regular time has become ingrained. If you find it hard to make time for a daily walk, find a walking companion or small group. My friend, Marcia, and a group of women in Corte Madera, California, get out and walk every weekday morning too.
The best time is whenever it works for you! Some of the fitness/nutrition stuff is just nuts (pardon the pun). Exercise revs your metabolism so I would guess morning is a great time… it just doesn’t work for me. I’m more of a mid-day person.
100% agreement from me. I exercise in the morning — except when I’ve taken a class of some sort that met at some other time of day. “Experts” are now saying that exercising for 10 minutes 3X a day is just as effective as one 30-minute workout, but I find that hard to believe — except maybe working with light weights for a few minutes here and there.