Where does fat go when you lose weight?

Where does fat go when you lose weight?

Have you ever wondered this? If you’re like most people, it has come across your mind at some point during your weight loss journey.

You spend months working your tail off doing rigorous amounts of exercise and perfecting your diet. At some point you may end up wondering, where does fat go when you lose weight? Does it come out when I use the bathroom? Do I lose weight through sweating? Is fat converted into energy or heat? Is the fat converted to muscle? Do you ever lose your fat cells once you gain them?

The most simple answer to all of these questions is this…you lose weight by exhaling your fat through carbon dioxide.

Yep, you got it right, you breathe out fat loss! Our lungs are the main excretory organ for weight loss.

Speaking of lung capacity…a side note….

• Increase your lung capacity to improve conditioning with an Elevation Training Mask. (over 630 extremely positive reviews on this little gadget!) This may be added to my Christmas list!

Now don’t go trying to exhale harder, longer and deeper to lose weight while you’re sitting at your desk. Come on, I know some of you may have thought you just found the easiest weight loss trick ever. Nope. It’s a bit more complicated than that.

Let me explain…

When your body has an overabundance of calories, this extra energy will eventually be stored into chemical compounds called triglycerides (which consist of oxygen, carbon and hydrogen). These triglycerides are then stored in the lipid droplets of fat cells (also known as adipocytes. They will sit in your fat cells until you start to lose weight. To lose weight, you are releasing the carbon that’s stored in those fat cells.

Around 84% of our weight loss comes from exhaling carbon dioxide and the other 16% is excreted as water via urine, feces, breath, tears, sweat and other bodily fluids.

So next time you’re at the gym and you overhear someone in the locker room asking “Where does fat go when you lose weight?,” you can now provide them with an educated answer!

Erin Weiss is a health & fitness blogger based out of Charleston, SC. She runs www.LiveLifeActive.com