Eating temporarily elevates blood-glucose and insulin levels. Unfortunately, a high level of glucose in the blood interferes with the body's ability to use body fat as fuel. As I'm sure you are aware of, the human body is very stubborn and won't release stored body fat unless it has no other choice. Jumping on the elliptical machine 15 minutes after a meal might burn some calories, but it will not be effective at lowering your body fat percentage.

Research suggests that performing your cardio in the morning before breakfast is the fastest way to trim your waistline and loose those stubborn "love handles." After 7 or 8 hours of sleep, our bodies blood sugar is low and stable, and our muscle glycogen (stored glucose) is slightly depleted. Having no quick energy to draw from, the body reluctantly decides to burn body fat to help us get through the session. Nevertheless, if you find that morning cardio is impossible for you, there are 2 other times that will put you body in a similar state, making it much easier for you to lose pounds of fat.

1. 90 minutes after a snack, and 3 hours after a meal - Waiting this amount of time for the body to digest and absorb the energy from food, will put you back in the ideal state where it becomes possible to release body fat for energy. This only occurs when your body doesn't have enough dietary carbohydrates or stored muscle glycogen to call upon first. For example, if you had a mid-afternoon snack at 3pm, you could do your cardio around 5pm. If it was a weekend and you woke up starving, you could eat breakfast at 8am and do your cardio around 11am and still expect to see good results from your efforts.

2. At the end your weight training routine - After about 30-45 minutes of intense weight training your body's fueling system changes from one that uses glucose for energy to one that uses free-fatty acids. This is another good time to perform cardio.

In my experience, doing your cardio in the morning on an empty stomach works wonders for your waistline, and I would highly recommend researching this and giving it a shot. My conclusion is in line with the sugesstions in "Fitness Made Simple" by John Basedow, "Body For Life", by Bill Phillips, "Fabulously Fit Forever", by Frank Zane, and "SuperCut" by Joyce L. Vedral, PH.D., and Bill Reynolds.

One final tip - If you are used to immediately following your cardio with weight training, may I suggest taking a break, and going back later in the day to perform your weight training or lift on another day. You need your mental focus, strength, and balance to be at their peak to train to the best of your ability. I would never to be able to weight train as hard as I do, and be as focused as I am, if I did cardio first. You should question the intensity of your resistance training program if you disagree. It makes no logical sense to do what's harder last.