Questions for evening exercisers

[Anonymous]

I have always preferred to exercise in the morning -- get up, and work out right away, before breakfast and showering. Now with baby, I just can't bring myself to get up before she wakes - I crave every single minute of sleep I can get. But I really want to get back in shape, and the only free time I can see in my schedule is after she goes to bed at 7:30. But by then I'm tired and hungry, and I don't feel like I have the energy to work out. So evening exercisers -- how do you motivate to work out at the end of the day, and when do you have dinner so that you have enough energy to work out, but not a full stomach that would make it uncomfortable? If I have a snack before exercising and eat dinner after, I feel like I'm just working off the snack calories, so it becomes a wash. Any tips & suggestions?

[Anonymous]

We're expecting our first, so I know our schedule will change, but my husband and I are both after-work exercisers. We come home, have a snack and then do our workouts. What it means is that we have a more "Mediterranean" meal schedule, meaning that dinner is usually around 8 or 8:30.

Saying that you're "only burning snack calories" is a misnomer. Depending on the duration and intensity and type of workout you do, as well as the size and quality of your snack, calories are calories. One option is to eat your snack before you leave work. That combination of carbs and protein (cheese & crackers, half a turkey sandwich, hummus and veggies, apple & peanut butter) should give you 200-300 calories in a form that will be easily digested, and appropriate energy to get your workout in. True, if your workout is a 2mi stroll, then you won't be generating a calorie deficit. But, if your workout is high intensity or duration -- a 5mi run, an intense 1hr aerobics class, a 1mi swim, 90min tennis, etc, then those calories are needed to top off your body's fuel levels to have an effective session.

Dinners for us during the week tend to be simple, and typically lower calorie, because post-workout we're not necessarily in the mood to make a complex, high-calorie dinner. So, a quick stirfry or salad or pasta (any of these again with a combination of carbohydrates and protein) or something like that is perfect to end the evening.

[Anonymous]

I was so exhausted I allowed myself to not exercise. I did take a lot of walks with baby in stroller, but this was in warmer weather.

Formerly, I was an evening exerciser and sometimes I would do it before and sometimes after dinner. I wasn't terribly structured about it...wjhenever I could fit it in.