x
When weight is lost, it’s through your breath. While most people think of their fat as being “burned” off, the metaphor can be misleading for patients and for doctors. A survey of “nutritionists, physicians, physical trainers and people who should know better, largely didn’t realize that lost weight does not leave our bodies as heat, get converted into muscle or get passed out in the feces. It largely leaves the body in the form of carbon dioxide exhaled from our lungs.” This is because the basis of fat is carbon. As fat gets broken down into energy, carbon dioxide is left behind while that energy goes on to be put to work elsewhere. The only place to get rid of that new CO2 is to breathe it out. “When someone sets a goal of losing weight without losing lean muscle, she is in effect planning to break down the fat stored in her adipocytes, or fat cells. Chemically speaking, fat must be oxidized, or broken down into its component parts. Oxidizing 22 pounds of fat uses about 64 pounds of inhaled oxygen, and will produce 62 pounds of CO2 and 24 pounds of water.
