When you lose weight, what actually happens to the fat that you lose?

Question

If you lose fat and gain muscle, exactly what happens to the fat. Is the fat expelled from the body in some way?

Answer 1

Fat cells will actually shrink when the energy stored up in them are used up. The number of fat cells do not change just the size of them as they fill up or loose energy stored in them. I linked a site that explains it better.

Answer 2

Fat is burned like gas by a car. It's broken down into glucose that can be used by the muscles for energy and water is released buring hte chemical combustion. It's the perfect fuel.

Answer 3

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Answer 4

When you lose weight, you are consuming fewer calories than your body requires. Body fat is used as a source of energy in this situation, i.e. body fat is metabolized.

Answer 5

Adipose tissue, or fat, is an anatomical term for loose connective tissue composed of adipocytes. Its main role is to store energy in the form of fat, although it also cushions and insulates the body. Obesity in animals, including humans, is not dependent on the amount of body weight, but on the amount of body fat—specifically adipose tissue. In mammals, two types of adipose tissue exist: white adipose tissue (WAT) and brown adipose tissue (BAT). Adipose tissue also serves as an important endocrine organ by producing recently-discovered hormones such as leptin, resistin and TNF.

Free fatty acid is "liberated" from lipoproteins by lipoprotein lipase (LPL) and enters the adipocyte, where it is reassembled into triglycerides by esterising it onto glycerol. Human fat tissue contains about 87% lipids.

In humans, lipolysis is controlled though the balanced control of lipolytic B-adrenergic receptors and a2A-andronergic receptor mediated antilipolysis.

Fat is not laid down when there is a surplus available and stored passively until it is needed; rather it is constantly being stored in and released from each cell.

Fat cells have an important physiological role in maintaining triglyceride and free fatty acid levels, as well as determining insulin resistance. Abdominal fat has a different metabolic profile—being more prone to induce insulin resistance. This explains to a large degree why central obesity is a marker of impaired glucose tolerance and is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease (even in the absence of diabetes mellitus and hypertension).

Recent advances in biotechnology have allowed for the harvesting of adult stem cells from adipose tissue, allowing stimulation of tissue regrowth using a patient's own cells. The use of a patient's own cells reduces the chance of tissue rejection and avoids the ethical issues associated with the use of human embryonic stem cells.

Adipose tissue is the greatest peripheral source of aromatase in both males and females contributing to the production of estradiol.

Hormones secreted by adipose tissue include:

Adiponectin
Resistin
Angiotensin
Plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1)
TNFα
IL-6
Leptin
Estradiol (E2)
A specialised form of adipose tissue in human infants, and some animals, is brown fat or brown adipose tissue. It is located mainly around the neck and large blood vessels of the thorax. This specialised tissue can generate heat by "uncoupling" the respiratory chain of oxidative phosphorylation within mitochondria, leading to the breakdown of fatty acids. This thermogenic process may be vital in neonates exposed to the cold, who then require this thermogenesis to keep warm as they are unable to shiver, or take other actions to keep themselves warm.

Attempts to stimulate this process pharmacologically have so far been unsuccessful, but might in the future be a target of weight loss therapy.

Answer 6

Gets burned through metabolism.

Answer 7

the fat is "burned" to provide energy to your body when you are heavily exherting yourself

Answer 8

You metabolise it, i.e. burn it for energy. By-products of that chemical reaction are carbon dioxide and water.

Answer 9

Yes. Through your pores(sweat)

Answer 10

it is known to us that it is turned into sweat that gets out while exercising