Read here to learn how your body breaks down food in the digestion process.

Dinner is over and you've decided to climb on the Stairmaster for a quick workout to help burn off what you ate. Good idea, right? Wrong! Exercising immediately after a meal hinders the digestion process and doesn't burn the fat that you are hoping to lose. Though it would seem that the vigorous activity after a meal would move the process along, the evolution of digestion actually works on its own schedule and isn't likely to be expedited much by our actions. In fact, exercise is less beneficial to our weight loss cause if it's done right after a meal.

Digestion actually begins before we've even placed a morsel in our mouths. The aroma of food activates saliva, which contains the enzymes that begin the process of breaking down food to be passed into our esophagus. The stomach also begins churning enzymes in preparation for what will be deposited there. By the time the first bite arrives, your body is usually already in full digestive swing. It's like starting a car and letting it warm up before driving off.

Once food enters the body, it is pushed down the esophagus and into the stomach. After arriving in the stomach, the food is mixed with digestive juices in order to begin the process of separating the different types of nourishment for delivery throughout the body. Carbohydrates are broken up into starches and sugars. The starches are broken up in two stages. First enzymes contained in the saliva and pancreatic juice breaks the starch into smaller molecules called maltose. Next the maltose is split further into molecules of glucose which are then absorbed into the bloodstream and carried to the liver and stored as a source of energy. Sugars, such as table sugar and that contained in milk, are broken down separately into either glucose or fructose and then are also deposited into the liver via the bloodstream.

The digestion of protein takes a bit longer generally because the molecules contained in these foods are often much larger and require more time to be broken down. Digestion of proteins begins in the stomach, but is then moved to the small intestine to further the process. There the enzymes together with pancreatic juice reduce the large molecules to much smaller ones called amino acids. Amino acids are then distributed throughout the body for use in building and repairing tissues.

Fats are considered a rich energy source. In order to gain the beneficial aspects of fat, it must first be mixed with enzymes and bile acids to create smaller molecules called fatty acids and that little thing called cholesterol. The cholesterol and fatty acids are then mixed again with bile acids and combined back into larger molecules that travel through the blood to various parts of the body as fuel for future use.

The entire process of digestion can take anywhere from 24-72 hours in a healthy person, spending up to at least 8 hours between the small intestine and the stomach. That being said, exercise in the minutes or even an hour after eating, doesn't burn anything that we've just consumed. In that short a time, the food is likely only in the beginning stages of digestion and not ready to be used as fuel. However, that does not mean that exercising after a meal can't glean any positive effects. Developing a routine of taking a brisk walk two or three hours after dinner can aid in speeding up your metabolism. While this will not directly affect something you just ate, it will affect the way your body burns calories over a period of time. The higher your metabolism, the quicker your body burns fuel. Therefore, creating a light exercise regimen after meals coupled with the intake of plenty of water will provide benefits over time. Though it may not literally allow you to burn off that piece of cake you had, it will assist your body in reaching a point where a piece of cake won't be a bad thing.

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