This is where your fat REALLY goes when you lose weight

If you’ve ever lost weight, you may have wondered what happened to that bit of fat that used to be on your belly – but there’s a bit of confusion about it.

Professor Andrew Brown, from the University of New South Wales in Australia, claims that many health experts don’t know where body fat really goes when you lose weight.

He said: “There is surprising ignorance and confusion about the metabolic process of weight loss.”

So he teamed up with TV science presenter Ruben Meerman to find out what happens to those pounds and their findings were published in the British Medical Journal.

Ruben said: “The correct answer is that most of the mass is breathed out as carbon dioxide.

“It goes into thin air.”

Former physicist Ruben was interested in the science behind weight loss after shedding 15kgs himself back in 2013.

He said: “I simply wanted to know where those kilograms were going.

"After a self-directed, crash course in biochemistry, I stumbled onto this amazing result.

“It goes into thin air”

Ruben Meerman

“With a worldwide obesity crisis occurring, we should all know the answer to the simple question of where the fat goes.

“The fact that almost nobody could answer it took me by surprise, but it was only when I showed Andrew my calculations that we both realised how poorly this topic is being taught.”

The Aussie TV personality tracked every atom in 10kgs of fat as they are “lost” and 8.4 of those kgs are exhaled as carbon dioxide through the lungs.

The remaining 1.6kgs becomes water, which the body gets rid of by urinating, sweating, breathing or crying.

Ruben said: “None of this is obvious to people because the carbon dioxide gas we exhale is invisible.”

But this doesn’t mean that breathing more can lead to weight loss.

The researchers warn that “breathing more than required by a person’s metabolic rate leads to hyperventilation, which can result in dizziness, palpitations and loss of consciousness”.