My brother Rick and I have had a “weight-off” for two years. We check in every week to report our weight lose (or gain). Rick weighs himself once a week while I obsessively weigh before bed and when I wake up. Every morning I’m always 2 pounds lighter than the night before. I’ve never known where my 2 pounds goes . . . until now . . .
The enlightening facts about fat metabolism
” . . . fat is converted to carbon dioxide and water. You exhale the carbon dioxide and the water mixes into your circulation until it’s lost as urine or sweat.”
“If you lose 10 pounds of fat, precisely 8.4 pounds comes out through your lungs and the remaining 1.6 pounds turns into water. In other words, nearly all the weight we lose is exhaled.”

judy’s journal
“This surprises just about everyone, but actually, almost everything we eat comes back out via the lungs. Every carbohydrate you digest and nearly all the fats are converted to carbon dioxide and water. The same goes for alcohol.”
“Protein shares the same fate, except for the small part that turns into urea and other solids, which you excrete as urine.”
“The only thing in food that makes it to your colon undigested and intact is dietary fibre (think corn). Everything else you swallow is absorbed into your bloodstream and organs and, after that, it’s not going anywhere until you’ve vaporised it.”
Eat less, exhale more
“So if fat turns into carbon dioxide, could simply breathing more make you lose weight? Unfortunately not. Huffing and puffing more than you need to is called hyperventilation and will only make you dizzy, or possibly faint. The only way you can consciously increase the amount of carbon dioxide your body is producing is by moving your muscles.”
“But here’s some more good news. Simply standing up and getting dressed more than doubles your metabolic rate. In other words, if you simply tried on all your outfits for 24 hours, you’d exhale more than 1,200 grams (42 ounces) of carbon dioxide.”
“More realistically, going for a walk triples your metabolic rate, and so will cooking, vacuuming and sweeping.”
“Metabolising 100 ounces of fat consumes 290 ounces of oxygen and produces 280 ounces of carbon dioxide plus 110 ounces of water. The food you eat can’t change these figures.
Therefore, to lose 100 ounces of fat, you have to exhale 280 ounces of carbon dioxide on top of what you’ll produce by vaporising all your food, no matter what you eat.”
And after reading your final sentence, I’m laughing off all my weight. Laughing surely expels copious amounts of fatty carbon dioxide – right?
OK, I’m going to get serious here and walk more – but I’ll laugh as I walk. Thanks for information that helps me lead a healthier life.
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Shari B-P,
Laughing while you’re sleeping works even better. Sweet dreams!
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I usually stand up and get dressed. Things to do are written on a list with previous things I never did. Before the day ends the new list is on the “previous” list as well.
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Bernice! If you change clothes every hour you should lose even more weight!
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This is a great blog. It is very informative and also made me laugh. Would like to spread this info around. Carolyn
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Carolyn M.
THANK YOU. That’s my hope – a bit of info and a bite of laughter. PLEASE DO SPREAD AROUND. If you haven’t already, check out http://catnipblog.com where we post lots of good information on health, wellness and near-science with a dash of laugh.
xxxxx j
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