Breathe yourself thin.

Here's an interesting fact:  80% of fat leaves the body through the LUNGS!

You've all heard of triglyceride, which is a type of fat found in the blood of humans.  This type of fat consists of three kinds of atoms: carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.  In order to lose unwanted fat, you have to unlock the atoms in triglyceride molecules via a precess called oxidation.

A team of scientists at the University of New South Wales, Australia, have traced every atom's pathway out of the body and have discovered that when 10kg of fat is oxidized, 8.4kg departs the body through the lungs in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2).  The remaining 1.6kg turns into water (H2O).

Their investigations also showed that inhaled oxygen required to carry out this metabolic process weighs nearly three times MORE than the fat being lost.

In order to completely oxidize 10kg of human fat, a person must inhale 29kg of oxygen, producing a total of 28kg of carbon dioxide and 11kg of water.

Sounds pretty simple, doesn't it?

Well actually, and here's the bad news, it isn't.  And here's why:

• At rest, a person weighing 11 stone (70kg) exhales around 200ml of CO2 by taking 12 breaths a minute - so say the investigators.  So by breathing out 17,280 times a day, a person will lose at least 200g of carbon, around a third of that loss will happen during sleep.
• Going for a run for 1 hour would help remove a further 40g of carbon from the body, raising the total loss by around 20% to 240g - ONLY.

As you can see it isn't that easy to breathe yourself thin.

According to the study's authors, Ruben Meerman and Andrew Brown;

"The exhaled carbon can only be replaced by eating food or consuming beverages such as milk, fruit juices or sugar-sweetened beverages."

So once you have lost your 240g of carbon you can easily put it all back on with jus a single 100g muffin!

Some investigators, doctors, dietitians, etc., are still firm believers in that to lose weight you have to burn more than you consume.  While this is not untrue, it isn't entirely correct either.

For me, it all depends on WHAT TYPES of foods you eat.  Eating carbohydrates will give you energy but get stored as fat in the body if not used immediately.  When you eat carbs they get turned into glucose which is used by the body for quick energy - when you need to run for a bus, etc.  The body must use up all it's stores of glucose BEFORE it can begin to burn fat for energy.

So, if you are going to the gym, running, etc., in the hope of burning extra fat, then don't eat carbs before working out.  You need to do AT LEAST 40 minutes of high intensity aerobic activity to burn glucose before you start burning fat.  In the absence to glucose, fat will be used for energy instead.

So yes... fat is lost from the body through the lungs... but to breathe yourself thin is not that easy.

I can help you improve your health.  If you would like to make an appointment with me either in person or via Skype, just send me an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com