Mailbag: Where Does My Weight Go When I Lose It?

This starts off like a bad dad joke then turns philosophical like “where do all of the left socks go?”  But there is a physiological answer also…

Weight is stored energy.

As we eat less and/or exercise more, we use the up the stores of energy to live.  Our bodily processes use these stores to generate heat, digest food, think, and move.  Each cell uses that energy for it’s own function(s).  That usage creates debris which is then urinated or defecated out of the body to be recycled into the environment.  It then becomes nutrients in soil which nourish plants that become our food which our bodies turn into energy for further use.  And the cycle repeats itself.

In a nutshell, your weight becomes you.  Your weight becomes your muscles and organs.  Your body is constantly repairing itself and needs energy to do so.  Your weight becomes your body.  Rather than stored as “fat”, it becomes other tissues.