A new study revealed that people lose weight by breathing out fat cells. This finding contradicts an earlier belief that fat is converted into heat or energy while working out.
Researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia surveyed 150 doctors, dietitians and personal trainers to find out how they think people lose their fats when dieting or exercising. More than half of the respondents said that the fats were converted into heat or energy. Some thought that fats are converted into muscle or flushed out of the body through urine or feces. These different misconceptions showed that most people are unfamiliar with how the body works.
"There is surprising ignorance and confusion about the metabolic process of weight loss," professor Andrew Brown, head of the UNSW School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, said in a press release.
The study's lead author, Ruben Meerman, a physicist and Australian TV science presenter, explained that people actually lose their fats or weight by breathing out, which converts fats into carbon dioxide during the process. He expounded that one could shed off 10 kilograms of fat by inhaling 29 kilograms of oxygen and releasing 28 kilograms of carbon dioxide and 11 kilograms of water. He used his background in biochemistry to answer his own question.
"I lost 15 kilograms in 2013 and simply wanted to know where those kilograms were going. After a self-directed, crash course in biochemistry, I stumbled onto this amazing result," he said.
Researchers clarified that people should not focus on just breathing or hyperventilating to remove their fats, but instead engage in at least one hour of a moderate intensity exercise to remove more carbon dioxide from the body, according to BBC News.
"Losing weight requires unlocking the carbon stored in fat cells, thus reinforcing that often-heard refrain of 'eat less, move more," said the researchers.
This study was published in the Dec. 16 issue of the British Medical Journal.
