What Happens to the Fat You Lose? Where Does It Go?

You’ve been consistent with both your workouts and your nutrition for decent period of time and as a result; you’ve dropped several pounds. You’ve made some fantastic progress and this is awesome!

Have you ever wondered what happened to the weight you lost? Where does it actually go?

What Happens to All of That Fat?

Do you sweat it out during your workouts?
Does it get converted to muscle?
Is it simply absorbed by your body?
Energy…it’s converted to energy right?

None of these are actually true… However, if you are like most people, you probably don’t think (nor care) about what happens to the excess body fat when they lose it; you are just glad it’s gone! There is often a lot of conversation about “going on a diet”, losing weight or more importantly, reducing body fat. However, there is actually quite a bit about this process that most people either don’t understand or find themselves mis-informed when it comes to weight loss.

Weight Loss vs. Fat Loss

Before we get into the specifics where all of the body fat goes when lost; it’s important to understand the differences between weight loss and fat loss. Focusing on fat loss is definitely more important than weight loss. The image below gives you some insight behind the key differences.

So What’s Really Going…?

I recently read an article accompanied by a video and according to Andrew Brown from the University of New South Wales and Australian TV personality (slash former physicist) Ruben Meerman, when you lose weight, you exhale your fat through your breathing!

Yep…you read that correctly, you are breathing out the body fat you lose! Crazy right.

Their new calculations, based on existing knowledge about biochemistry, were published in the British Medical Journal a couple of years ago.

“There is surprising ignorance and confusion about the metabolic process of weight loss,” Brown says in a news release. “The correct answer is that most of the mass is breathed out as carbon dioxide,” Meerman adds. “It goes into thin air.”

The mathematics of weight loss

At this point, you are probably pretty pessimistic about this notion that you simply breathe out excess body fat…right?

Well, I am about to drop some science on you, ok not me really, but Ruben Meerman. Here is the video I referenced from above. I highly encourage you to check it out, it’s a fascinating conversation and provides some great insight into the real science of weight loss!

Now…just in case you were already thinking about it… No. Breathing more than required by a person’s metabolic rate leads to hyperventilation, followed by dizziness, palpitations, and loss of consciousness.

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