In all my years as a fitness professional I would say the number one reason people come to see me is so I can help them with weight loss. Now if I were to ask you how does fat leave the body, what would you say? I'll give you a moment to think about it. Did you think about it? If you're like most people you either think it (a) it turns to muscle or (b) you poop it out. If you thought either one of those or if you didn't know at all let me enlighten you. Your body actually loses fat through breathing. Crazy right? It's true, fat doesn't simply "turn into" energy or heat, and it doesn't break into smaller parts and get excreted. 80 percent of the fat that leaves your body is expelled through your lungs. That’s right. You’re breathing away those pounds. This is not some new idea, a lot of very smart scientists in the United Kingdom and Australia have done extensive research on this topic.
You see, human fat cells store triglyceride—a type of fat in the blood—which is made up of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. These atoms are released through oxidation (breathing) and when that happens, fat is burned off. Stay with me It may sound confusing but it's really not. The thing to remember here is that the oxygen needed to complete this metabolic process weighs nearly three times the fat being lost. So, to completely oxidize 22 pounds of human fat, 64 pounds of oxygen must be inhaled. Which means you have to take in a lot of oxygen! Now don't start taking deep breaths on the subway or inline at Starbucks this will probably only get you weird looks and you'll most likely pass out.
What you do need to start doing is getting your heart rate up when working out. You've all seen the buzzword HIIT right? Well its more than just an annoying term that trainers like to throw around at the gym. It's that state your body needs to be in to help with weight loss. If your goal is to lose weight but you're not elevating your heart rate and producing lots of oxygen its going to be almost impossible to reach that goal. You could just move to somewhere with a really high altitude but that seems like a drastic measure. You also can't just deprive yourself of food to lose weight either, obviously that approach works but it s not a healthy option nor is it sustainable long term. You know what is sustainable, working out, being active!! So go to the gym or get out in nature and just remember to breath!