"...when you lose weight, you exhale your fat."

[Silent3]

Last edited Thu Dec 18, 2014, 12:45 AM - Edit history (1)

I figured this out for myself a few years ago, when I set out to lose 85 lbs. I realized that most of the weight I wanted to lose was going to have to be exhaled away. It's great to see an article like this to back me up.

In one way it was a daunting thought, but it was also helpful for making me feel like all the heavy breathing during intense exercise was really doing something.

...they found that 8.4 of those (10) kilograms are exhaled as carbon dioxide. Turns out, our lungs are the primary excretory organ for weight loss. The remaining 1.6 kilograms becomes water, which is excreted in urine, feces, sweat, breath, tears, and other bodily fluids.

The necessary physics of the weight loss process are very important to keep in mind when you evaluate diet and exercise programs. Fat doesn't just disappear, it doesn't "melt" away. "Turned into energy" is NOT a way that mass goes away to any significant degree in anything but nuclear reactions.

You have to literally, not figuratively, burn fat away. The burning doesn't produce a flame, but it's a form of burning nevertheless. Fat is a hydrocarbon. Hydrocarbons + O₂ -> CO₂ + H₂O + heat. The carbon part of your fat is the heaviest part of your fat, and that can only escape your body as CO₂ via exhalation. Even part of the weight you lose in the form of the hydrogen in water goes out through your lungs too, as moisture in your breath.

Full article: http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/where-does-your-fat-go-when-you-lose-weight

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Who knew?

Fascinating.

[Scuba]

2. I've had great success with the ELEM diet.

Eat Less, Exercise More

[Skinner]

3. I remember that thread.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12286120

Didn't realize you posted it until I just searched for it. Very cool.

[Silent3]

4. Thanks for digging that up.

I only vaguely remembered bringing up the idea before, I'd totally forgotten about that post myself.

[tridim]

5. Hey, I just learned that you have to pause after an inhale or you don't expell much CO2.

Apparently a 4-count for the inhale, a 7-count for the pause and an 8-count for the exhale is the most efficient and helps relieve stress.

I've been practicing daily, but breathing is a tough habit to change.

[mike_c]

6. it's the redox chemistry of biomass....

Reduced carbon in biomass is oxidized back to CO₂ and water. But don't forget protein catabolism, too. Got to get rid of the excess nitrogen, usually as urea or similar compounds.

[Silent3]

7. That's going on, of course, but it's not a major component of normal weight loss.

There's only so much of your weight you can piss away.

[Silent3]

8. Another way to put that: When you lose weight too fast, you piss away muscle.

It's very hard not to lose a little muscle when losing weight, but it's only bad diet plans that cause high muscle loss. Since stored body fat (what you're really trying to lose when you lose weight, if you're smart) is just carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, any nitrogen compounds you shed while losing weight are either from the food you're eating on your diet (totally normal) or from losing muscle (a little of that is normal too, but you don't want it to be too much).