If you've made a weight-loss goal and you've been making progress along the way to your goal weight, you might often wonder, "where does the fat that I've lost go?"
Ruben Meerman, PhD, thought about this frequently during his own weight loss transformation. Dr. Meerman became intrigued with the biochemistry of weight loss after he lost 15 kilograms/33 pounds.
Many doctors, personal trainers, researchers, and dieticians believe that the fat you lose is converted into energy or heat in your body. However, this is far from true.
Dr. Meerman and Dr. Brown, a professor at UNSW School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, had a paper published in the British Medical Journal that examined where fat really goes.
According to their paper, if you follow the atoms in 10 kilograms/22 pounds of fat, 8.4 of these kilograms/pounds are exhaled from carbon dioxide through your lungs. The remaining kilograms/pounds become water, which can be excreted from sweat, breath, tears, or bodily fluids.
Dr. Meerman shares his personal experience with weight loss, as well as why he decided to look into the puzzling question, 'When you lose weight, where does your fat go?"