How Long Can You Take a Break From Exercise Without Losing Fitness?

Question: How Long Can I Take a Break From Exercise Without Losing Fitness?

Answer: While exercising consistently is important for building endurance, conditioning your body and losing weight, you may reach a point where you're tired, bored and desperately need a break. Taking a break may be just what you need to rest, recover and rejuvenate, but how long before you start losing your fitness?

You may be surprised to learn that taking a few days or a full week off from training won't necessarily hurt the gains you've made. In fact, many serious exercisers and athletes regularly schedule a week off every 8-12.
It takes more than a week to undo all your hard work, so don't be afraid to take a break if you're feeling tired and sore. A few facts to consider:

• Aerobic power can decline about 5-10% in three weeks
• It takes about 2 months of inactivity to completely lose the gains you've made
• Extremely fit exercisers will experience a rapid drop in fitness during the first three weeks of inactivity before it tapers off
• Muscular strength and endurance lasts longer than aerobic fitness. Muscles retain a memory of exercises for weeks or even months

There's no hard and fast rule about how many rest days to take or when to take them. The key is to listen to your body for signs of overtraining and to your mind for signs of boredom or exhaustion.
Signs You May Need a Break

• Fatigue or physical exhaustion
• Soreness that won't go away
• Dreading your workouts
• Poor performance
• You're not able to progress in your workouts
• You feel unmotivated or bored
• An injury or illness
• You can't stand the thought of exercising

Taking a few days or a week off may be just what you need to get back to your workouts with more energy and enthusiasm. Remember, you don't have to be completely inactive and, in fact, this may be the perfect time to try activities you usually don't have time for. Leave the routine and the heart rate monitor at home and try:

• Taking a long walk
• Trying a yoga or Pilates class
• Stretching
• A long, easy bike ride
• Tossing a football or frisbee
• Leisurely working in the yard

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Trying to Lose Weight? Don't Skip Breakfast

Eating breakfast is an important part of a weight loss diet. Research studies show that people who eat breakfast have a better chance of reaching and maintaining a healthy weight.

Some experts believe that breakfast keeps your metabolism running higher because skipping meals causes the body to kick into 'starvation' mode. 

This sounds impressive, but that's probably not what happens -- it takes three or four days of eating nothing before the body starts gearing down your metabolism. It's more likely that people who regularly eat breakfast also make good dietary choices the rest of the day.

Make a Healthy Breakfast

While any breakfast may be better than no breakfast, don't ruin your breakfast with high-fat and high-calorie foods. There are some foods you might want to avoid because they're high in added sugars, sodium, saturated fats and calories.

Cut back on sugary breakfast cereals (over 5.0 grams per serving), high-calorie pastries, and meats like bacon and sausage that are high in saturated fat and sodium.

Breakfast should include a healthy source of protein and plenty of fiber; the combination will help satisfy your hunger and will keep you feeling full until lunch time. The protein should come from low-fat meat, low-fat dairy products, or nuts and nut butters. Eggs are also a good source of protein.  

High-fiber foods include fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Oatmeal is an excellent high-fiber breakfast food.

A healthy breakfast doesn't need to be extravagant or take a long time to prepare. Try an easier breakfast -- something simple like a hard boiled egg, a piece of 100-percent whole grain toast along with a cup of 100-percent fruit juice. And there's nothing wrong with a bowl of cold whole grain cereal with berries and low-fat milk (remember to check the cereal label for grams of sugar). You can also purchase breakfast bars made from different types of cereal, but remember to read the label because many of these bars are high in sugar.

If you really don't like to eat first thing in the morning, split breakfast into two smaller meals. Eat a hard boiled egg, or a small cup of yogurt before you leave for work, then about an hour or two later, take a break from work to snack on an apple and a handful of healthy nuts like pecans or walnuts.

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The Best Time of Day to Exercise? Lets Look at the Research

Is there a best time of day to exercise? Two of the top reasons people give for not exercising regularly include lack of results and lack of time. So, for many people, the best time to exercise is the time that is most convenient and the time that fits into a busy schedule.

Research on exercise and time of day is growing, but still limited and and not without controversy. In general, if you can find a time for exercise that you can stick with consistently, you will be much more likely to train regularly and get better results.

Circadian Rhythms and Exercise

Human sleep and wake cycles follow a daily cycle called circadian rhythms. It's this cycle that regulates our body temperature, blood pressure, alertness and metabolism, among other physiological functions. In general, these rhythms conform to our 24-hour day and may be reset based upon environmental cues. The time of day that we typically exercise is one of these cues. Research by the University of North Texas, in Denton found that although circadian rhythms are inborn we can reset them based upon our behaviors. For example, using an alarm clock, establishing meal times and even when we workout are all cues to help rest our rhythms. They found that people who consistently exercise in the morning "teach" their body to be most ready for exercise at that time of day. When they switched to evening exercise, they didn't feel as strong.

The ability to adjust your rhythms is important for athletes training for a specific event. The message is to train at the same time of day that the event will occur. Research supports this advice. Studies show that your ability to maintain exercise intensity will adapt to your training time. Therefore, if you do your marathon training in the morning, you may perform better on race day (marathons typically start in the morning). But if you train in the evening, a morning race day may leave you feeling weaker and slower.

Individual Differences and Exercise Timing

Some people are just naturally morning people. They have no trouble exercising first thing in the morning. Others don't get moving so quickly and are more likely to feel like exercising later in the day. If you have such an obvious preference it's pretty easy to decide what sort of exercise schedule you might stick with. The interesting thing is that research shows that no matter when you think you are better able to exercise, almost all of us are, in fact, physically stronger and have more endurance in the late afternoon.

Scheduling Exercise

Not everyone can choose to exercise when they feel like it. Work and family commitments often take priority and we end up squeezing in some exercise. If you find that the only time you have to exercise is when you least feel like it, don't despair. As we learned earlier, you can change your rhythms and your body can adapt to a new exercise time. However, it may take about a month to reset your internal exercise clock.

Research and the Best Time to Exercise

While there is specific research being conducted on this topic, unfortunately the answer to the question, "What is the best time for exercise?" varies based upon the specific question you ask, your training goals, and your exercise adherence. Here are some of the latest specific research findings:

• Late Afternoon is Best for Exercise
  Research shows that the optimal time to exercise is when our body temperature is at its highest, which, for most people is 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. (body temperature is at its lowest just before waking).
• Strength is Greater in the Afternoon
  Dr. Hill reported that strength output is 5% higher at around mid-day; anaerobic performance, such as sprinting, improves by 5% in the late afternoon.
• Endurance is Greater in the Afternoon
  Aerobic capacity (endurance) is approximately 4 percent higher in the afternoon.
• Injuries Are Less Likely in the Afternoon
  Afternoon exercise is the best if you want to avoid injuries for many reasons. We are most alert; our body temperature is the highest so our muscles are warm and flexible; and our muscle strength is at its greatest. These three factors make it less likely that we will get injured.
• Morning Exercisers Are More Consistent
  Even though afternoon exercise might be optimal from a physiological standpoint, research also shows that morning exercisers are more likely to stick to it that late-day athletes.
• Evening Exercise and Sleep
  Most research supports the idea that exercise can improve sleep quality. But does exercising too late in the evening keep you up? Studies have shown improvements in sleep from both morning and afternoon exercise, so it's not yet clear if evening exercise keeps you up. One study even showed that vigorous exercise half an hour before bedtime did not affect sleep.
  One thing that is agreed upon is that sleep deprivation can hinder sports performance.

The Bottom Line
The good news is that you get to decide the best time for you to exercise based upon your personal goals, schedule and lifestyle. Ideally, you will pick a time that you are able to stick with consistently and make part of your daily or weekly schedule. If you are training for competition, it's wise to modify your training to accommodate the event start time, and it's always wise to warm up before any workout. 

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