Morning or Evening

its my understanding that your body takes on food best within 30 minutes of finishing exercise so thats a good time to refuel / rebuild.
If what youre trying to do is loose weight then just increase the exercise and food is mostly irrelevant unless you just eat junk of course.

If weight loss is the aim then fasted rides and leaving it as long as possible before eating again

I dont finish work until 6 so often dont finish training until gone 8pm and I need to sleep reasonably early to get up at 6 the next morning.
I don't think eating so close to sleeping is the best thing to do as you lose some quality of your sleep but certainly better than training on a gut full of food.
As for training at 0530, well it works for some but I couldn't be doing with that myself

Another aspect to the early mornings is that insufficient sleep is linked to overeating and weight gain. So the few extra calories you burn during the early ride are probably negated

sungod wrote:

matudavey wrote:

Another aspect to the early mornings is that insufficient sleep is linked to overeating and weight gain. So the few extra calories you burn during the early ride are probably negated

insufficient sleep has nothing to do with what time you get up, it has to do with how long you sleep

there're early risers, there are late risers, it's up to the individual what is best for them, there is no right/wrong time

yeh agreed - just meant don't sacrifice sleep for training time, especially if trying to lose weight.

For solely weight loss, you'd probably be better sleeping loads, eating less and not training
Obviosuly if you want to be good at bicycling you need to do bicycling

Just try it. If you sleep OK then it's fine. Even if it does disrupt your sleep it's fine too, as long as you spend enough time in bed to get enough sleep.

I regularly finish riding at 10pm and eat at 11pm. Works for me.

But why would you want to be on Zwift at this time of year..? Best thing about the middle of the summer is being able to go out on quiet roads until 10pm with it being fully light.. Save Zwift for the winter!

awavey wrote:

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

If weight loss is the aim then fasted rides and leaving it as long as possible before eating again

my impression is that only works if its not what youve been doing normally as your body adapts to a routine eventually, all my morning commutes are technically fasted rides,and some of my weekend rides are too which isnt always a smart idea, I dont eat in the morning till lunchtime, eat tea around 6-7pm & it makes sod all difference to my weight

It's not so much your body has adapted it but your mind has adapted your food intake the rest of the day to meet the energy demands.

The reason fasting works (for some people) is that it is a hunger/desire management tool.

There are some potential cycling performance benefits from fasting, such as increased glycogen storage, and better fat metabolism, and some potential health benefits, but weight wise it is just another way of trying to control calories

For me doing hard intervals very late evening has an impact on my sleep. It has a strong waking effect and can make it very hard to drop off. This is a pretty well know effect I think, I've certainly heard it discussed on the trainerroad podcast. I used to ride a Tuesday/Thursday chaingang after work which ran 7-9pm roughly then I would drive home, home by ten and then I would often need another couple of hours to be ready for sleeping.

I do workout early morning, but I like to keep these fairly steady because otherwise I spend the rest of the day sweating gently or knackered... I am sure I would get used to it if I did it more often.

Pross wrote:

I would say that if you eat earlier then exercise afterwards you are less likely to train hard as your food will try to reappear. Whilst cycling is easier after eating than a lot of other exercise in my experience (I struggle to run at even the easiest of paces until at least 2 hours after eating) as soon as you try to put any kind of intensity into it you are likely to find it difficult so I'd say stick with what you are doing or have a go at the early mornings.

So when I would do this I would have a smallish meal (3-400 calories) an hour before cycling then have another similar sized small meal after that. Stops the repeating issue. This meant having a small meal at work say 5.30pm.

Webboo wrote:

Why is it important to exercise around the same time.

yes, this.

#curiosity

I prefer morning purely from the point of view is that nothing can get in the way of it. I normally train at 0600 and 0700 and it sets me up for the day and normally I am happier because of it. It also forces me to go to bed at a decent time because I know I have to get up as I have a bad habit of sleeping on the sofa.