Stored body fat is fundamentally composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms, and when your body breaks down these triglycerides for energy, the metabolic byproduct is expelled primarily through your lungs.

A closer look

Stored body fat is fundamentally composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms, and when your body breaks down these triglycerides for energy, the metabolic byproduct is expelled primarily through your lungs. Australian physicists calculated that to lose ten pounds of fat, you must exhale exactly eight point four pounds of it as carbon dioxide, while the remaining fraction turns into water that leaves via sweat and urine. This completely shatters the popular fitness myth that fat magically transforms into pure energy or burns up in a fiery furnace inside your muscles. You are quite literally breathing out the remnants of last month’s pizza every time you gasp for air on the treadmill, making your respiratory system the ultimate, slow-motion exhaust pipe for your terrible dietary choices