When You Burn Off That Fat, Where Does It Go?

So here’s a question I never really thought about before: when you lose weight, where does it go? I mean, fat cells are made up of atoms and atoms can’t just disappear. So when your love handles start to shrink or you lose an inch off your belly, what happens to that fat?

Turns out, you breathe it out! Through a complex chemical process, when a fat molecule is burned within your body, one of the byproducts is carbon dioxide. And you end up exhaling it.

Yes, we exhale lost fat. There it helps plants photosynthesize (if you’re feeling noble) and contributes to global warming (if you’re feeling guilty).

Check out this article from NPR Health. Now, when you notice you’ve dropped a bit of weight,  you’ll know what happened to it.