The most deadly weight loss advice

There is a rash of news reports on obesity experts claiming diet and exercise don't, and can't work, for weight loss.

Claiming that diet and exercise can't work for sustained, healthy weight loss is the most insidious, callus, and harmful advice possible, yet this is the fastest growing trend in the battle against (sic) obesity.

This kind of disillusionment applied to the only effective treatment for obesity and weight loss is robbing people of their only possible help.

People will continue to suffer.

Many don’t “believe” that permanent fat loss can occur, because they are emotionally compromised by the dismal failure rate and all the of the physiological and psychological challenges to overcome.

If we stay with the evidence of what works though, and work harder on delivering that, then the success rate will climb.  It's important to recognize how confidence inspiring the evidence is for permanent fat loss is, rather than focussing on the failure.

Diet and exercise, along with substantial cognative and emotional work, every time, without exception.  Deviate from that process though, and failure is imminent. 

If you came across a shovel next to a spot where a hole was intended to be dug out, but wasn't, it would be wrong to conclude that shovels don't work.  Pick up the shovel, start digging.  If you stop digging, it still would not mean that shovels don't work.  Progress was halted by stopping the action that causes progress.  If you buried the evidence by shovelling the hole back in, you would not be changing the reality that the hole was successfully dug in the first place.  Start digging again, and you'll make progress again.

Claiming that regaining weight after weight loss is outright failure, is about as misleading as saying that shovels don't work.

Fat loss without a calorie deficit simply cannot occur other than with invasive surgery, and if there aren't lifestyle changes to accompany that surgery or calorie deficit weight loss, failure is the typical outcome.

We know the chance of successfully reversing long term obesity and excess weight is virtually zero.. only about 1% of people who try to get down to a healthy weight are able to succeed beyond the 5 year mark, and maintain it for the rest of their lives.

So what causes the failure?  

Returning to previous overeating habits.  More calories in than out causes fat gain.

It isn't the case that lifestyle changes don't work, they do.  What happens is people halt the positive habits because they didn't completely overcome previous negative habits.  Overeating feels very rewarding, and moving away from that reward feels like reward is being stolen.  If the work isn't done to make new reward associations with living healthy, people will feel compelled to return to previously established unhealthy habits.

If we don't overeat, we can't gain excess body fat.. that is not an oversimplification, that's physics. 

This is the process:

Person loses fat with diet and exercise, or tries, but compensates temporary caloric deficits with overeating on weekends or other times.

Person struggles with the new lifestyle changes and feels compelled to return to overeating and not exercising, or eats more food energy than is burned off in exercise, creating a cycle of more exercise, and more overeating.. whatever the course, a calorie surplus is sustained.

Most people succumb to the drive to return to overeating, and either quickly or gradually gain all the fat back that they lost initially.. often returning to a higher body fat than before.

The diet and exercise worked.  That's what caused the initial weight loss.  When the person stops eating healthy, and begins overeating again, obesity returns.

This is not a failure of diet and exercise, this is evidence for how difficult people find it to move away from the harmful habit of overeating.  Overeating is a sinister and tenacious habit driven by appetite dysregulation, dopamine reward seeking, using food to cope with stress, depression, low self esteem, peer pressure to overeat, and automated eating habits where there is a tendency to keep eating without cognitively registering the fact.

Diet and exercise don't fail, people fail at sustaining diet and exercise.

It isn't that diet and exercise are not sustainable, it's that people fail to disengage from previous habits and values, how they think and feel about food, and feel compelled to return to the perceived reward of overeating.  These are the ties that bind, and there isn't a very good chance of permanent weight loss success without being vigilantly supportive of helping a person overcome these challenges. 

To make matters worse, "failure" is an ugly word that carries with it negative personal judgment.  It's important to not allow the risk of failure to be avoided by sticking our heads in the sand, but rather to accept the possibility of failure, and work on adopting strategies to overcome the high risk of failure.

Weight loss failure is about halting the effective diet and exercise, and returning to overeating. The natural vulnerability to this failure is covered up and ignored because it is emotionally difficult to process the experience of gaining weight back.

The most difficult challenge that I have seen in working with people to lose weight is always in establishing new reward associations with diet and exercise, and being able to identify and overcome the ball and chain of feeling compelled to overeat.  

There are usually deep personal issues, painful issues, feelings of worthlessness, fear of failure, getting trapped in cycles of high hopes followed by dismal failures, and an unrelenting reward association with eating too much.  This is combined with true changes in appetite hormone regulation.

We know that chronic overeating results in a chronic change in feeling hungry.  You'll feel more hungry than what is needed for sustenance.  We know that larger serving sizes are needed to feel satiated.  And, we know this is reversible, that a person can return appetite regulation to normal status, but, and this is a significant contingency, it takes a long time to make this happen.  Sustained healthy weight, and sustained healthy eating is necessary to allow for these adaptations. 

The combination of physiological, psychological, and sociological drives to overeat make it an extraordinary challenge to reverse obesity permanently.  It can be done though, with diet and exercise.

In personal conversations with overweight individuals, I have always witnessed personal suffering.

Suffering physically, suffering emotionally.  I'm told of how awful it feels to struggle to tie ones shoelaces because of all the body fat in the way.  I'm told about the teasing, the disparaging looks.  I'm told of the sore knees, sore feet, sore pretty much everything.  Can't get comfortable sleeping.  Can't get comfortable sitting, health issues caused by being overweight and the extra stress that burden carries.  I'm told that many of these struggles are deeply internalized and never voiced due to embarrassment and feeling at risk of being humiliated.  Do we make fun of someone when they suffer from cancer? From an injury?  No?  I hope not.  Likewise it is very disrespectful to make fun of someone for gaining body fat.

Empathy and understanding anyone? No? That's another significant part of the problem.  What gives here.  The majority of the population is suffering from weight gain, yet most of us can't wait to overeat the next whatever, and we permit discrimination and alienation of people who are overweight.  We're discriminating against ourselves, and mocking our own habits.  If we're not overweight, we will have a close friend or family member that is suffering from obesity.  Get your stuff together people.. wake up to the real life suffering of those close to you.

Feeling trapped by eating and compelled to continue overeating.  Trying to ignore the acknowledgement of self-harm.  Hiding overeating so others can't see it, and feeling emotional torment when doing so.

That's the reality of struggling with weight that I know.  I don't see any of that reality mentioned when the catastrophically misinformed, spew forth their aloof claim that diet and exercise, and lifestyle changes don't work.. and suggesting this is all a big mystery that isn't understood.

It is understood, and it's hard.  It's hard to overcome the real challenges of chronic overeating.  It's hard to feel so vulnerable about your weight that you can't begin to talk about it or the uncomfortable emotions that plague you. 

This is the reality of weight loss.  Changing your life works, but.. you have to change your life. Change how you think, how you feel, change your actions, habits.  And all the while fighting the hounds of temptation to keep eating.  

There is a lighter side.  There is the acceptance of the process, learning to enjoy new foods and learning to un-like the crap foods. Feeling empowered by losing weight and getting stronger.

Feeling empowered by recognizing there is a way out, and every step of the way things get better.

You sleep better.   You're able to see the inner workings of appetite and what drives reward, and that you can alter all of this in your favour.

The clincher for me is the 1%.  Do what the 1% of people who are permanently successful with weight loss do, and the success will be repeated.

This is where the focus should be.  Focus on what is proven to work through research, and improve ways of delivering this to people in need.

To beat obesity we have to avoid the current trap of being overwhelmed by the failure rate, and apply due diligence to the success rate.  We have to move away from wishful thinking and avoidance of why weight loss failure happens.  Knowing about the common failures is empowering.  It's like knowing about potholes in the road before you get there so you can get on a different road.

More importantly we have to prevent obesity from occurring.  We live in an obesogenic society where we cherish overeating and have distain for healthy portions.  We coax each other to go back for seconds and thirds, haplessly laughing it up as we overeat.  We believe serving our friends and families enormous portions of food is showing our care and appreciation, when really we're causing harm to each other.  That's not working for us.

When we give large servings of fatty, salty, sugary foods to our friends and family, to our children, we are unwittingly training them to chase an exaggerated reward sensation. You can't get that kind of brain reward centre stimulation from healthy foods, so crap foods become the preference.  We're carrying on the traits of our obesogenic culture.  Children represent the fastest growing segment of our society for fat gain and obesity.  Adults are still gaining fat every year. And yet most can't wait for the next gathering where overeating is the central theme we congregate around.

We can show our caring for one another by making healthy meals, instead of crap that harms.

Overeating has got to go the way smoking has, finally seen for the harm that it really is, and that we've only been fooling ourselves by putting so much emphasis on overeating as part of every occasion.

We lose fat through calorie deficit. More importantly, we prevent excess fat gain by changing our relation with food.. enjoy healthy portions, and get out of the trap of believing that overeating is a priority in life.

What is the point of repeating the cycle of fat gain and frustration with fat loss by continuously returning to celebrating and cherishing eating too much and eating crap?

Don't succumb to the misguided and denial based notion that fat gain occurs because of some unexplained mystery of genetics or metabolism, and that because of this, diet and exercise can't result in fat loss.  This "explanation" is used as reasoning to continue chasing the reward of eating too much.

Diet & exercise: Everyone is different. Or are they?

Whenever someone say's "everyone is different, you have to find what works for you", I know that whoever follows this mantra is going miss a lot of opportunity to have success with fitness and maintaining a healthy body weight.

 This sentiment is perceived to mean that two people may need drastically different exercise programs and food intake strategies in order to improve fitness and get all the nutrients they need, but this just isn't case, with the exception of medical conditions. For instance, a food allergy to nuts might cause a severe reaction or even death in one person, and for another, the same food is perfectly healthy, that's a dramatic exception, but not the rule.

However, even between those with allergies and no allergies, we would still find that all the aspects of the body were still pretty similar.  Both would still need balanced nutrition with about the same amount of daily requirements of the same nutrients from the same food sources, except of course those causing the allergic response.

Any person not getting enough vitamin C will develop survey.  No exceptions ever.  No human produces vitamin C, which is why we need to consume it (vitamin C rich foods are your best source).  Nobody is "different" in this regard.

If women don't get adequate amounts of folate in their diet prior to and throughout pregnancy, serious birth defects like spina bifida can occur.  This is why many countries fortify foods with folate, and why women are recommended to consume a balanced diet and take folate supplements.  This is true for all women, no exceptions.

People who don't exercise cannot become physically fit.  It's the exercise that stimulates change.  This true for every person.

What happens with the "everyone is different" mantra is that people become convinced that they are immune to fat loss because they are "different".  Or self proclaimed diet and exercise guru's use the "difference" argument to sell and promote unfounded strategies after convincing people that only their special program addresses their "differences".

Interesting.  When I'm in an exercise lab looking at oxygen and carbon dioxide breathed in and out, I see the same variables at play in everyone; no exceptions ever.  When people increase fitness, any person can observe telltale signs of physiologic adaptation, which are the same in everyone.

I've never had any person not get stronger when they exercise, except when overtraining (which includes emotional suffering as well as performance losses).

Lets's do a quick systems check:

Everyone has a brain, heart, lungs, liver etc, and these important organs are found in the same place, and they perform the same functions in every person.

Arms attach at shoulders, not the knees.  Everybody's biceps bends the elbow.

Everyones body temperature is about 37 degrees C.

Everyones blood cell levels when healthy, are in the same range for how many there are.

Everyone needs to breath air and consume food and water, and everyones digestive system works the same way when healthy.

Strength training makes everyone stronger.  Cardio training makes everyones cardio better.

Overuse injuries are predictable, because the bodies tolerance to exercise is governed by the ubiquitous design of the human body.  When someone is injured they will most likely respond the same way to same the rehab program as someone else with the exact same injury.  There is variability on time to recover, and the total degree of recovery, but the recovery process is the same: heal injured tissue and retrain it.

While there are there are definitely varying degrees of response to the same exercise between different people, with some being more tolerant of more frequent training and others requiring more recovery time, the same training adaptations are still occurring, just at a slightly different rate.

Each of us have more in common with each other than we have differences. This isn't a bad thing and doesn't subtract from our intellectual sense of self or personality traits.  Interestingly though, even with our diverse personalities, we'll still find groups of people who are very similar in personalities.

We can find medical exceptions to many of these commonly shared attributes but these variances don't nullify the rest of everything else that is near identical between all of us.

It's true that we need to find the foods and exercises that appeal to us individually, but really we're all doing the same thing with the same equipment, or at least, very similar equipment.

In practical application when I look at the nutritional and training needs say, of a bodybuilder and a marathoner, the two most commonly juxtaposed athletes, all of the core requirements between the two are the same. Both need to consume adequate amounts of a variety of foods to meet all the basic vitamin and mineral needs, otherwise predictable nutrient deprivation symptoms will start and health will deteriorate, and that goes for any human.

They both need about the same amount of good sleep, about the same amount of protein per kilogram of body mass, they both need fats and carbs, but the marathoner will need more carbs and fat (more emphasis on carbs) when cardio training volume is high and on race day.  We're still talking about the same need for cabs, proteins, and fats, but a small variance in the distribution of the same nutrients.

The carbs are not being used for something "different" in the marathoner versus the bodybuilder.  Both require carbs for energy for sustaining muscles contracting.  The marathoner's muscles are working for a longer period of time, but they still contract and relax in exactly the same way the bodybuilders muscles do.  The tiny contractile filaments are doing exactly the same thing. The marathoner will have developed their aerobic system more, but it is the same physiologic aerobic system the bodybuilder has.

The terms "bodybuilder" and "marathoner" serve practical purpose, but really we're talking  about two humans.  Do we train bodybuilders and marathoners "differently"?  I suppose it can be a matter of semantics.  What we're really trying to do is get the same basic design human body to get better at doing the same thing, but to greatly different degrees.  Both need to maximize muscle contractions, one for very brief periods producing near maximal or maximal force, the other contracting for very long periods with a fraction of peak force production.

If I look at my programs for runners versus bodybuilders or strength athletes, I'll see more similarities than true differences.  They both use weights to train, but of course the strength athletes spend proportionally more time doing the strength training than the cardio training.  But when both athletes to lunges, they're both doing lunges.

They'll both have a mix of high reps and low reps, but the marathoner will do more high rep sets compared to the bodybuilder.

Of course the runner, cyclist, skier etc, does significantly more cardio.  However in order to determine what intensity the two people should train at, both will undergo the same testing and will be given training that is based on the results of the tests.

When either is doing cardio, they are of course..  doing cardio.  Their hearts, lungs, and muscles are still engaging the cardiopulmonary systems, and if we looked at both on a treadmill in an exercise lab we would see the same things happening in both.

In terms of the degree to which each uses their aerobic system (the same aerobic system using the same components), we would see the endurance athlete has greater aerobic capacity (of course).

Importantly, they both have an aerobic capacity that is measured the same way, measuring the same things.

Let's look at muscles.  These images apply to every human on the planet.

This diagram includes an actual image of the contractile fibers (black and white)

This image is what is thought to be happening on the microscopic level.. in everyone.  Never mind the details for now.. the mechanism is the same.

We all have these, mitochondria, and they do the same thing in everyone; they make energy for our cells.

In muscle cells the mitochondria are right next to the contractile fibers.  Yes, these are in the same place and do the same thing in both marathoners and bodybuilders, though sometimes sport culture differences cause the two to feel at odds with each other, and they might not like to admit that their muscles are made the of the same things and do the same things.

What would happen if we convinced the bodybuilder and marathoner to switch places? To spend a couple years training and competing in the other sport?

First, this would pretty difficult to do because these two athletes are typically the antithesis of each other, often not paying much respect to the other.  A shame really, because they are mostly doing, you guessed it, the same thing.

They're pursuing a physical and personal challenge that inspires them to do better, to build their bodies to a higher level. I think if bodybuilders and marathoners could get passed the traditional prejudice they share for each other, they would find their trials, tribulations, and triumphs were pretty much the same experience emotionally, with very similar perspectives as well, on their physical training progress.

If we did find two noble and seemingly disparate athletes to switch off for a couple years we would see the bodybuilder losing muscle mass and gaining aerobic efficiency, and the marathoner would-be bodybuilder would gain muscle mass and strength and reduce aerobic performance.

No kidding.  Why?  Because their bodies would respond to the same training the same way.. because that's what the human body does.  It's coded into our DNA.

 Genetic variability between people dictates the degree of responsiveness to what exercise we do.  Some are more responsive to building mass, others more responsive to aerobic improvements.  Both have the same systems that work the same way and respond the same way, but the degree of response is the variant.

Some people have a genetic predisposition that is better suited to pursuing endurance sports, some for strength sports.  However, the mechanisms that allow for strength and endurance would still be the same between the two people.

My reason for writing this entry is to try and dispel the urban exercise myth that everyone is completely different.  Believing this causes a lot of confusion and the generation of more falsehoods.

I don't want people to be misled into believing that their exercise plan or nutritional plan has to be significantly "different" than anyone else's   Really we're all looking at the same variables applied to different degrees between us.

This doesn't mean that sedentary people should copy elite athlete programs to get fit.. well, actually it does mean that.  Literally.

Elite athletes didn't (or shouldn't have) start out with large volume high intensity training; they started out not as elite athletes, and started with the basics.  That is part of the elite development model, but we often are distracted by the optics of the end point of athlete development and so we don't make the connection that easy, incremental exercise is part of the elite athletes experience.

Anyone who is getting started should start of with very easy, simple exercises that were well within their current ability, and gradually increase loads as their ability increases.  This is what everyone does, including those who become elite athletes.  At some point they had to start with the basics.  So yes, the elite development path in it's entirety, properly and logically starts off well before the person is transformed into the elite athlete.

See how were all more the same than different? We don't all end up in the same place, but we start out about the same.

If a sedentary person tried to train with the same relative loads as a developed elite athlete, that would be a disaster.  Too bad this is actually quite common.  If they did that, they wouldn't actually be on the same program, because they would have skipped all the years of preparation the elite athlete did.

Next time someone tells you how different people have completely different nutritional needs or training needs, rest assured this can't be true, because skin and all, we're made of the same components that work the same way.  That's why the RDA for nutrients is aplicable to nearly everyone.  We all need about the same amount of vitamins and minerals to perform the same functions in us.

If any person on the planet doesn't consume sufficient iron, they will develop anemia.  There are no exceptions.  The reason this is the case is because human physiology requires a certain amount of iron to support critical functions in the body, mainly transporting iron, which is done in the same way in all humans.

What's great for all of us is that the variance to which we can adapt our bodies to is enough satisfy anyones drive.  Using nearly the same bodies, we can adapt to all the different activities and sports we know about.  Genetics play's a roll in dictating the degree we respond, so for peak performance if you're genes are better suited to respond to strength activities, choose a strength sport you like.  Natural endurance ability?  Choose an endurance sport.  Or, to heck with the genetics, you'll respond to anything you do, and you'll respond really well with good training and nutrition habits.

I'm not saying the hocky teams program is 100% identical to the rowing teams program, I hope nobody interprets that.. I'm saying that whether you're training for hockey or rowing, you'll find the two programs follow the same process:

Start with developing the same core competencies.

Gradually spend more time doing the exercises that are specific to the sport

In general most of the exercises will be the same, (pushing exercises, pulling exercises, leg exercises, core exercises, cardio training)

A hockey player and a rower both have brains that coordinate movement patterns, hearts that deliver blood and oxygen to cells, lungs that respirate, biceps that bend the elbow, a need for proper recovery, balanced nutrition, work, life, training balance..  More similarities than differences and the differences are really degrees of the same things.

Don't be fooled by fads, gimmicks, and pseudoscience claims about how the body works.

At the end of it all, all of our hearts are literally, in the same place.

Exhale to lose fat

Where does fat "go" when we burn it off?

Nearly all the stored fat we use as energy is expelled primarily through our lungs when we exhale carbon dioxide and water vapour (fat is made of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen).

All of the food you eat can be accounted for by measuring everything that goes in and out of our bodies.  There are no mystery calories, and there is no mystery fat gain or fat loss.

If we eat too much, the extra food is stored as fat.  If we eat less food than the total energy we burn off in a day, we use energy from our fat stores.  We can measure the process of using food for energy in the carbon dioxide we exhale.

This is a normal measurement and is done daily in exercise labs all around the world.  I've been looking at this data for decades as a coach, and have had the testing done on myself many times. There's a description of this test at the bottom of the article (with photos).

It's all about accounting for mass.  We know the mass of molecules of carbs, fats, and proteins, and we know how we use the components of those molecules for energy, and we know how much energy is needed to move the mass of our bodies and keep our cells functioning.

It's an energy equation where we are able to accurately account for the mass of what we eat, and the by products of metabolism.  It's physics. Don't be misled by corny non-evidence based ideas that don't account for the mass of molecules.

I realize all this molecule stuff doesn't sound as promising or as exciting as the latest "fat loss breakthrough" claims, but it is reality.  All the fad fat loss claims out there are always proven to be fake anyway, so let's bypass the hype and go straight to the science.

Learn this reality so you can't be fooled by weight loss gimmicks. And more importantly, if you're trying to lose fat and are feeling frustrated about the process, learn how your body works (for real), so you can lose fat while by-passing the phoney promises, the hype, and all the crooks carefully constructing great sounding lies. We know fake news travels faster and reaches more people than supportable facts. Give the facts a chance.

Via a fairly complex chemical pathway, we breakdown fat molecules to make energy, and have some waste products left over, namely water and carbon.

The fat molecule: a triglyceride (right) is made up of atoms of carbon (black), hydrogen (grey), and oxygen (red).  Lot's of these are stuffed into fat cells in our "love handles", and aroud the rest of the body.

Carbon dioxide molecule (1 carbon + 2 oxygen).  We breathe out a bunch of these.  The black thing in the middle (carbon) used to be part of the fat molecule above.  After we break apart the fat (break the carbon-hydrogen bonds) for energy, there is carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen left over, the same amount as we started with, but no longer put together as a fat molecule. At the end of the energy production cycle, oxygen bonds with hydrogen to make water, and oxygen bonds with carbon to make CO2. We exhale the CO2.

Water and carbon mass, formerly fat in fat cells, former (too much) food on a plate, leaves our bodies through three primary paths.

Exhaling

The toilet

Sweat

A very tiny amount of the water is lost in sweat and through the bowel, some is recycled, and a fair amount is also exhaled as water vapour. The vast majority of the mass lost in fat loss goes out, a little bit at a time, in the carbon dioxide we exhale, save for the less than 1% that goes into urine.

Fat doesn't "melt" off, is not converted to muscle, can't be spot reduced with abdominal exercises (or triceps exercises or whatever), and isn't increased or decreased due to different genetics.

You also won't lose fat by exercising in a "fat burning zone", unless you have a calorie deficit, in which case it doesn't matter if you burn fat during exercise or not.  Only a calorie deficit, considering all calories consumed VS expended, will result in fat loss.  Consider this.  If you burn off 500 calories exercising in a fat burning zone, but the total calories you eat is the same as the total calories you expend during the day, no fat loss will occur because you have replaced everything you burned off.

The reasons why this is, are explained here.

We eat food, which has molecules of fat, carbs, and protein, which are made of mostly - you guessed it - carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms.  When we eat too much we store the extra as fat (carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms).   When we don't use the food molecules we eat as energy, we're literally left holding the bag.  We have left over molecules of food with nowhere to go, except our fat cells.  That's where we put the overflow.

We don't have anywhere else to put the fat.  We can't store it in our heads, though some might argue that some are capable of this feat. There's no room in our bones for lot's of excess fat from chronic overeating.  Our blood lipids can increase, but this is really a temporary thing as it takes time to shuttle excess fat to our fat cells.  Our blood can't handle all the extra food we overeat - it would simply become too dense and would't be able to be circulated.  We have adipocytes (fat cells) in our organs and do store some extra fat there, which is really bad for our health, but the storage capacity in our organs fat cells is very limited compared to the virtually unlimited capacity of our fat cells in our large adipose sites between our muscles and skin.  If we fill up our existing fat cells and keep over eating, our bodies just make more fat cells.

We don't poop it out - if we did we would have very oily stool every time we overate fat.  Sorry for the detail, just eliminating some of the common guesses out there.  When we do the drill down, all extra food we eat can be accounted for in the storage of fat in our fat cells.  It simply isn't biologically possible to put it anywhere else.  If it were, we'd see obvious evidence of this.

When we use up the stored fat, that mass has to go somewhere, it can't just disappear into nothing, that's not realistic.

Are you breathing?  Some of what you are exhaling used to be excess fat. Some of that carbon comes from using carbohydrates and protein as a fuel as well, so not all the carbon we exhale comes exclusively from fat.  If you have a calorie deficit, the molecules of fat used to make up for what you didn't eat come from your fat stores and are lost through exhaling carbon dioxide.

Without a caloric deficit or surplus, what you exhale matches what you ate. There is no net gain or loss of fat mass.

Visualize your foods in their microscopic form; a bunch of molecules. Follow the journey of these molecules through your digestive tract and into your body.  The molecules will be used for energy by every cell in your body.  If you ate more molecules than your cells need for energy that day, the unused molecules are shuttled to your fat cells.

Your living cells use energy 24/7 even if you don't eat enough for the day.  Your cells still use molecules of carbohydrate and fat for energy, but when what you eat isn't enough to supply energy needs for the day, your body uses fat stores, and every gram of fat used can be accounted for.  You exhale it as carbon dioxide and some water vapour.

Actually, fat is continually shuttled in and out of our fat cells. Kind of like a storage depot that receives and ships out product every day. When our energy consumption matches our energy use, fat cells have no extra fat stored or lost.  Like a storage depot receiving 10 boxes but also shipping out 10 boxes.  Eat too much, and more fat is stored than used (you receive 10 boxes but your customers only need 6 boxes from you), leaving you with extra inventory.  Have a calorie deficit, and more fat leaves the fat cells than is put in, and you lose weight, a few grams at a time.  You're always breathing, and when you have a calorie deficit, some of the CO2 you're exhaling comes from fat in your fat cells, even when you're sleeping.  You're still burning molecules of sugar, fat, and protein to make energy (measured in calories) when you sleep.

Through being a little more active and eating a little less anyone can create a calorie deficit, and reduce their extra fat inventory.  A calorie deficit can't fail at producing fat loss, but we can fail to accurately account for how much we eat and exercise, obscuring the truth of us eating too much.

In case you were curious about how much carbon dioxide mass we exhale- (and I know you are), here are the stats:

About 2.45 grams (0.005 lb) per hour at rest

Between 50 and 90 grams (0.11 - 0.2 lb) per day for the average sedentary person

350 - 400 grams for a moderately active person 

600 or 700 grams per day for a very active person exercising 1 - 2 hours per day.

In an hour of moderate to hard exercise the average exerciser will exhale about 350 grams of carbon dioxide (0.8 pounds).

A very active person will blow out about 700 grams of CO2 on the days they exercise for about 90 minutes.  That's nearly 2 pounds!  This accounts for the equivalent mass of food energy consumed for the day, if there is no weight loss or gain.  Despite nearly 2 pounds of CO2 being exhaled, if you eat more than you burn off, the extra goes to fat cells.  Ever gone for a run or going to the gym and justifying eating more because you worked out?  Sure, you burned off energy, but if you eat more than you burn off, fat gain occurs.  The gains can be accounted for, as can the losses if you burned off more than you ate.

You don't have to exercise 90 minutes a day to lose fat, I only used that example because it exaggerates the values making it easier to see the difference.  150 minutes of moderate exercise per week and being mindful of reducing food intake is enough.

This exhaling carbon thing has been butchered and abused by diet "gurus" who invent crazy diets that involve, yes, "special" breathing techniques to breathe your fat away.  Impossible, of course, but because we can become desperate to lose fat, we can become susceptible to believing these false claims.  When you look at the calories recommended in these corny methods, they all use a low calorie diet.  They don't address this fact, and use misdirections to convince you "special" foods or food combinations have a magic influence on fat loss.  It's eating less, not the "special" claims, that is causing fat loss. The crackpots who push this stuff are gladly being paid by their customers whom they are lying to.

Changing how you breathe has no effect on fat loss.  You have to eat fewer calories (food energy) than you burn off in order for some of the carbon you exhale to result in fat loss.

If we eat as much carbon (from food) as we exhale, our weight will stay the same, no matter how much we breathe or how we breathe.

If we consume less carbon (from food; this is all about eating food, and what happens to it) than we exhale, we lose weight. For many people, weight loss is difficult.  People make different claims or assumptions about why this is.  When investigated it's always found that people who make such claims or believe in common weight loss fallacies, don't realize they over-report their exercise, and under-report their food consumption.   This is easy to do in our overeating culture, and also easy to do when food is habitually used as a reward.  You're less likely to want to acknowledge overeating, because that would mean having to deal with eating less, which can feel like getting less reward.

Calories in, calories out.  All accountable by adding up the carbon.  Sure, it's complicated science to do the measuring to figure all this out, but that's what scientists do.  For us, the science is already done, and to benefit from the research, we need to eat less and move more, to achieve a calorie deficit.

While calories in, calories out is the sole equation for fat gain and loss, we also have to be mindful of meeting our energy needs without eating too little or exercising too much in desperation to lose fat. We need a certain amount of food to supply important nutrients, and to meet our healthy minimum energy needs.

Did you know that gas powered cars also use energy stored in hydrocarbons?  That's what we're blowing up in the cylinders of our automobile engines; hydrocarbons are in the molecules of gasoline.

Let's say you have 65kg (29.5lb) of gas in your tank when full.  Fill your tank, and your car weighs 65kg more.   Use half a tank, and you lose 32.5kg of mass.  As you burn gas driving, the gas level in the tank goes down, and the car weighs less.  Where does the mass go?  Out the tail pipe in the form of exhaust.  Every kilogram of fuel that goes into your engine can be accounted for in the exhaust.

Lets say you plan on a long road trip, taking a route where there aren't any gas stations for part of the trip.  You'll need to fill some gas containers and keep them in the trunk. Kind of like eating too much food and storing extra fat.  When the gas tank is near empty, you start using your stored gas, and now you have less gas in the trunk, and your car weighs less.  This is analogous to fat loss in people.

What if you had those extra gas containers in the trunk, but then came across a new gas station where you expected none to be?  Might as well take advantage and top up the tank right?  This might be like someone surprising you with a box of donuts (or whatever unplanned eating).  You "take advantage" and add to your fuel stores when you do that.  If you don't have extra energy expenditure to burn off the extra, you retain the excess in fat stores.  If you don't drive off the extra stored gas, It doesn't go anywhere.

Most of us manage our gas use in cars reasonably well, rarely running out of gas.  We pay attention to the gas gauge and have a fair idea of how much driving we get out of a tank (or range from a charge). Pretty much all of us drive our cars in this way.  We're already good at managing the daily energy needs of our cars. If we incorporated this skill into how we eat and exercise, seeing food as energy supply, it makes it easier to understand our food intake/ energy needs.  But we can still be find it frustrating to overcome the temptation to overeat.

To lose fat we have to fill up less when we eat so we can use the extra energy we already have stored in our "tank".  We still need to replenish our supply of carbohydrates, proteins, essential fats, and vitamins and minerals daily, so cutting back too much deprives us of essential nutrients we need every day.  Remember the storage depot analogy, it's a continuous cycle.  If we cut off too much of the supply to the storage depot, the depot can't perform it's function because it won't be able to supply its daily baseline customer demands.  If we eat too little we can get tired and sick.

The only way to deplete the stored fat is to eat less than we burn off.

On average an approximate 500 calorie per day deficit is safe and reasonably manageable for most people, especially with adding a little bit of physical activity.

Gas mass in, exhaust mass out.  Storage depot boxes of product in and out.  A couple of analogies that very closely reflect our calories in - out balancing needs.

Carbon-hydrogen bonds, calories, food.  Just different words to describe the same thing in greater or lesser technical detail. Calories refer to the energy potential of food.

A lot of the mass of food we eat is not extracted into our bodies through our digestive system.  Much of it remains as the bulk that we - leave in the toilet.  A lot of the food mass we eat is actually water, so a pound of food doesn't have a pound of carbon in it. For instance, a 70 calorie, 28 gram slice of bread has about 2 grams of fiber and about 11 grams of water. About 40% of a slice of bread has no calories in it, and most of that portion has no carbon in it (the water).

Of the 70ish calories in that slice of bread (mostly from sugars, a tiny bit of fat, and small amount of protein), about 15% of the energy is used for digestion. We're left with about 60 calories worth of energy stored mostly in the carbon-hydrogen bonds of the sugars, fats, and proteins.

Fats, carbs, and protein are each different combinations of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and in the case of proteins; nitrogen as well. Fat is the most densely packed.

Like a shrewd accountant, your body can reconcile every molecule of food you eat with every molecule you use for energy and store as fat.  There is no metabolism mystery that causes unexplained fat gain, no genetic trait that causes people to gain fat without over eating, no verified accounts of people having a calorie deficit and gaining fat (impossible), and no verified accounts of people having a calorie deficit and not losing fat (also impossible).

The reason I wrote about fat loss from this perspective was to show that fat has a known value.  There is no mystery as to what fat is, and where body fat comes from and where it goes.  My hope is that I can put a small dent in all the contrived, misleading, misunderstood, and urban myth idea's that are so popular.

I'm not suggesting we focus conceptually carbon atoms to control body fat. That's impractical.

In day to day practical application we’re thinking about portion sizes, number of servings, and matching that up with our activity level.  We also need to be mindful of how some foods that fire up our reward centres can cause us to feel really compelled to eat too much.  Noting the difference between feeling hungry because you need the energy and feeling a craving because you want the reward of a favoured food is important.

Healthy fat loss is about burning off more than we eat and to do so we need to be mindful of how many calories (food energy) we're consuming.  What I offer here is proof of the fact that we know what a "fat roll" is made out of, where it comes from, and where it goes.  Creating a caloric deficit works to lose fat, and it works because it can't not work; it works because of physics and chemistry that is real and measurable.

No tricks, no gimmicks, no mystery.  We know how this works. Fat loss is explainable. Don't let anyone fool you with weird ideas, alternative facts, or fake news.  Be wary; the gimmick pushers are practiced at seeming sincere, know about peoples vulnerability, and know how easy it can be to manipulate a person feeling frustrated and desperate.  They make themselves appear as though they are empathetic and are on your side.  They know how appealing this can seem.  But really they are scammers.

Eat less, move more, and address where your eating motivation comes from.

Mayo Clinic says what I just said here, but they do it in two paragraphs click here

What are you eating?  Use eatracker to find out, and Cronometer

Update! Apparently I made a scientific breakthrough without knowing it... - sort of.

A recent study in the British Medical Journal has published a study on this topic, but interestingly, they state that this is a novel perspective on how fat loss works.

Not really, since I posted this article a year before the study was published., - and also... yeah... um... -everything I've written here is standard, basic science- that has been known for several decades.

Study: When somebody loses weight, where does the fat go? 

So how do we figure out how much carbon dioxide (CO2) a person is exhaling?

Why, in an exercise lab, of course..

Below is a picture of me in the University of Manitoba's exercise lab having my VO2 max assessed.

The tube in my mouth delivers the gases I breathe in and captures the gasses I breathe out.

In the print out below there is a VCO2 column that shows how much carbon dioxide I was exhaling in liters per minute.  At my moderate pace I was exhaling about 330 grams of CO2 per hour, some of the carbon in the CO2 from fat, a lot from carbs, and a little bit from protein.

For you calculating types out there, the density of CO2 is 0.001977 g/mL

This carbon thing isn't my idea, it's proven through research, and we've been measuring this for many decades. It's no secret.

The most challenging part of successful weight loss isn't the mechanics of eating less; it's changing our habits, our thoughts, and our sense of reward with food and exercise.  Studies show that the single reason why many people regain fat after losing it- is because they stop the new healthy habits and return to previous overeating habits.  The return is made because, as many will be able to concede, it's very difficult to get past the strong internal drive to overeat.  I have a lot of posts on how to do this though, so read my blog articles and learn how to lose weight and get fit.

Calorie denial... why we can't face the truth of overeating. Click here for article