Simple breathing can help you shed extra kilos

Melbourne, Dec 17: To lose extra fat, all you have to do is breathe in and breathe out more during exercise or brisk walking, new research has revealed. "Our calculations show that the lungs are the primary excretory organ for fat," the researchers said, noting that more than 80 percent of body fat can be exhaled away. Excess carbohydrate or protein in the diet is converted to triglyceride, which consists of just three kinds of atoms - carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Shedding unwanted fat requires unlocking the atoms in triglyceride molecules by a process known as oxidation, the researchers explained. They discovered that when 10 kg of fat are fully oxidised, 8.4 kg departs via lungs as carbon dioxide (CO2). The remaining 1.6 kg becomes water (H2O). "Keeping the weight off simply requires that you put less back in by eating than you have exhaled by breathing," the authors explained. The study appeared in the British Medical Journal.