When you lose weight, where does it go? - Group Talk - Week Commencing 26th May 2025.
- friendsonajourney2
- Jun 4
- 2 min read
When the topic suggestion @Where does fat go as we lose weight' was raised, it was interesting to hear the responses. In fact, they mirrored surveys conducted on doctors, dieteticians, and personal trainers, where 98% of health professionals didn't know either.
The most typical misunderstanding is that fat is transformed into energy, but this theory contavenes the coversational law of subtance, which governs all chemical reactions. Another suggestion was that fat turns into muscle; this is impossible, and others suggested it left our bodies via our bowels.
In fact, the research into where body fat actually goes when we lose weight was only recorded in 2013 by a team of Australian researchers, and their results were then published in the British Medical Journal.
The right response is that fat is converted into water and carbon dioxide. We exhale carbon dioxide, and the water combines with our circulation, pending being passed as urine, sweat, or tears.
The research disclosed that 10kg (22lb) of fat turns into 8.4kg (18.5lb) of carbon dioxide, which is exhaled when we breathe, and 1.6kg (3.5lb) of water, which we then excrete through our urine, tears, sweat, and other bodily fluids.
The lead author of the paper was Ruben Meerman, an Australian physicist (scientist who studies physics) and TV presenter.
We gain weight when we consume surplus carbohydrates and proteins, which are converted into triglycerides (organelles of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen) that are stored in lipid droplets inside fat cells. To lose weight, we need to break down these triglycerides to access their carbon.
In fact, the primary excretory organ of fat is our lungs; in fact, 84 percent of a fat molecule atom is exhaled as carbon dioxide, and the remaining 16 percent passes as water. However, breating deeply or increasing your breaths doesn't help you lose weight; being active does help unlock the carbon and break down the fat.
Video: Where do trees get their mass? https://youtu.be/2KZb2_vcNTg
There is no magic shortcut to losing weight; the consistency of staying within a deficit and being active is the best way to promote a healthy weight loss that is sustainable.
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