Chemistry behind weight loss!

We are all obsessed about having a ripped up body. What all things we do not do for a Zero size body. We all go through crash diets, hit the gym, fitness regimes, ordering gym equipment etc. We all have a misconception about weight loss. We all talk about losing weight, but I would like to ask you

"Where does the fat go?"

Is Fat turned into energy or what we call calories, is fat turned into sweat, or fat goes down the toilet or is it turned into muscle. Lets go on. We will be using thermodynamics, physical chemistry and biology ahead.

What is fat?

Fats, also known as triglycerides, are esters of three fatty acid chains and the alcohol glycerol. There are many different kinds of fats, but each is a variation on the same chemical structure. All fats are derivatives of fatty acids and glycerol. The fat molecules are called triglycerides (triesters of glycerol). Three chains of fatty acid are bonded to each of the three -OH groups of the glycerol by the reaction of the carboxyl end of the fatty acid (-COOH) with the alcohol. HOH (water) is eliminated and the carbons are linked by an -O- bond through dehydration synthesis. This process is called esterification and fats are therefore esters

This is a saturated fat molecule. Simple chemical formula is C57H111O6. Fats are burned when we work out, so let us burn the fat molecule.

C57H111O6 + O2  = CO2 + H2O

Let us balance the equation stoichiometrically,

4 C57H111O6 + 327 O2  = 228 CO2 + 222 H2O + Energy.

let us see the equation in point of view of the molar mass, (atomic mass of Carbon, Hydrogen and oxygen atom are 12, 1 and 8 respectively). Thermodynamics is a part of Physical Chemistry, and Conservation of Energy and Mass is a basic law. 

4* 892 gram fat + 327* 32 gram oxygen = 228* 44 Gram Co2 + 222* 18 gram water + Energy.

In simple terms,

10 Kg Fat + 29.32 Kg Oxygen = 28.11 Kg Co2 + 11.11 Kg Water

This is highly surprising. It shows the ignorance and misconception about our metabolic activities. In order to lose 10 Kg weight, we breathe out 28 Kgs of carbon dioxide. Basically we are breathing out Fat as Carbon Dioxide. It goes into THIN AIR. The results shows that the lungs are the primary excretory organ for weight loss. The water formed may be excreted in the urine, faeces, sweat, breath or other bodily fluids, and is readily replenished. The sweat formed is just a bodily reaction to the exothermic reaction. Sweat acts as a coolant, therefore keep your body hydrated.

What happens inside our body!

We put on weight when excess carbohydrates and proteins that we've had are converted into triglycerides (compounds made up of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen) and are then stored in lipid droplets inside fat cells. To lose weight, you need to break down those triglycerides to access their carbon.

On a day of rest, you breathe around 12 times a minute so you will breathe 17,280 in a day and each one roughly takes 10 milligrams of carbon with it. So there's your limit on how much you're going to lose in a day with no exercise. On the other hand, replacing one hour of rest with exercise such as jogging, removes an additional 40 g of carbon from the body. 

Conclusion

Weight can be lost by 

1) Going on crash diet and the let the metabolic activity do the job. I would like to advise you that this is a very bad idea. During crash diet you are starving the body. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction! the body will react by bringing down the metabolic rate. So when you give up your diet and go back to the routine diet, the body will put on weight because the metabolic rate is down.

2) Hitting the Gym. This is also a bad idea. 'Tears' occur in the muscle tissue from exercises like weight lifting, sit ups and planks. These disruption activates satellite cells from outside the muscle fibers, which rush to the area of damage. These cells replicate, mature into grown cells and fuse to your muscle fibers. This process forms new muscle protein strands, which increases the strength and visible size of the muscle to better cope with similar physical activity in the future. This will in turn increase the body weight and push out the fat around the muscles. This will be a much worse situation.

3) Doing the cardio workout, the heart rate raises to 50 to 70 percent of your maximum heart rate. This work out gets approximately 50 percent of its fuel from fat, and roughly 50 percent of the fuel from the blood sugar and food intake. You burn the other 50% of your maximum heart rate from fat. Higher intensity cardiovascular exercise burns a lower percentage of calories from fat, getting anywhere from 5 to 35 percent of its energy from fat. However, because you burn more calories overall, you may burn just as much fat with higher intensity exercise as with lower-intensity workouts; however, short burst of high-intensity exercise such as sprinting burns strictly glycogen.

To burn 1 gram of fat, you need to burn 9 calories from fat. Since moderate-intensity exercise, such as walking, jogging, hiking, dancing or moderate bicycling, burns roughly 140 to 185 calories in 30 minutes, you can estimate that 50 to 60 percent of those calories comes from fat. That translates to 70 to 111 calories burned from fat. At nine calories per gram, you burn approximately 7.8 to 12.3 g of fat in 30 minutes, or two times that amount in 60 minutes.

At higher intensity, if you're working out at 75 to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate, for example, approximately 35 percent of burned calories come from fat. That means if you jog for 30 minutes and burn roughly 295 calories, you burn around 103 calories from fat, or the equivalent of 11.4 g of fat.

Bottom Line

The level of exercise intensity decides the fat burned. The number of fat grams you burn or the percentage of fat you burn during exercise is not the key to losing weight or fat with exercise. The key is to burn more calories than you take in. As long as you're not severely limiting your caloric intake and causing your metabolism to rebel and slow down, you'll lose fat if you create a calorie deficit. Watch what you eat, particularly the number of total calories and the overall quality of your food and beverage choices. Exercising in a fasted state (such as first thing in the morning) will bring it up yet another notch. Weight loss requires patience, but it will give you results in a long time. Make a 90 day plan and Control on intake, i mean you should eat, but avoid junk food and soft drinks.

Its like munching on a cone ice cream. We have to eat through the top scoop of the ice cream to get to the bottom chocolate at the bottom of the cone. First we have to burn all the scoop of fat and then hit the gym for the chocolate at the bottom of the cone.

The funny thing about all of this is that, most health professionals don’t know what happens to fat when we lose weight. So don't believe on all that.

We don't contribute to global warming because of weight loss. Don't worry! You are not guilty of Global Warming.