BoomerGirl Diary

Q. I'm having trouble finding a properly fitting sports bra. Some I've tried are so tight that I can hardly get them on. Others are too loose. Where can I shop, for good variety and knowledgeable salespeople?

A. Women regularly bring questions to our weekly chats about which brand of sports bra to buy. It's a question of fit. While most sports bras come in just small, medium and large, most breasts don't, which is probably why you've been squeezing into some and getting little support from others.

What you need is a sports bra that comes in specific band and cup sizes. And those are more likely to be lurking around lingerie specialty stores than at your local sporting goods behemoth. There's also a better chance they'll be the encapsulation style (which divides, conquers and hooks in the back) rather than the compression kind (which just squishes one's chest into a uni-boob and can be a pain to pull on).

At Trousseau, a shop in Vienna, Va., fit specialist Amanda Bobbitt sees plenty of women who have been looking for support in all the wrong places — 85 to 90 percent of her customers had previously donned the wrong size for all their bras (sports included). So she measures underneath their armpits to get a band size, takes her tape around the widest part of the breast to get cup size, and then tries several.

"The bra should be lying flat against the breastbone without any breast tissue coming out the top, from underneath or out the sides," she explains.

The shopping process is similar at the Washington area's Sylene, says co-owner Cyla Weiner, who notes that fit is only half the battle when it comes to sports bras. Without adequate support, a foundation garment isn't worth its underwire. So she likes women to move around to mimic their workouts.

"You can do that easily in a dressing room, and people won't think you're crazy," promises Weiner, who's partial to a Lunaire bra that comes in sizes up to quadruple D (and at $32 is a relative bargain).

The only gals whom the stores don't cater to? Ones who can jog without bras at all. "We still haven't found a good company for an A bust," Bobbitt says.

Q. I have just gone on a diet and exercise kick, and I am hoping to lose around 40 pounds. I keep reading that it is better to work out in the morning to lose body fat, but I leave for work by 7:15 a.m. Is working out in the afternoon going to be just as effective?

A. I consider myself a morning person, but it turns out that morning is actually a lousy time to try to get your body moving.

After fasting all night and lying in one position, that's like "asking your body to behave like a sports car without putting any gas in the tank," says Jonathan Ross, owner of Aion Fitness in Bowie, Md. While it's true that some studies have slightly higher rates of fat-burning in pre-breakfast workouts, that may come at a cost.

In a recent study at the University of South Carolina, swimmers who raced at different times of day performed best at 11 p.m., worst between 2 and 8 a.m. Your natural body rhythm might "make you more inclined to exercise at night because it feels better," says USC assistant professor of exercise science Shawn Youngstedt. Plus, he says, evening exercise has the extra benefit of replacing typically sedentary nighttime activities such as watching TV.

But will I stop working out in the morning? No way. That's because the most critical thing isn't the timing but the regularity, according to Ross. The early hours are often the ones with the fewest distractions: You won't skip because you have to work late, go to book club or help your kid with algebra.

"The key is to find something that works for you and your schedule," Ross says. If that time for you happens to be the afternoon, you're golden.