Wouldn’t it be cool if you could just breathe the weight off? Well, there is research to suggest that is exactly what we are doing when we lose weight.

Wait, what about calories and counting steps and all of that? According to researchers at The University of New South Wales in Australia, the model of burning fat, “violates the law of conservation of mass.” (Back to chemistry for me!) Ditto the notion that we excrete fat or convert it into muscle. So what’s the deal, and why is breathing critical for weight loss?

Well, in tracking the atoms that leave the body it was found that “In order for 10 kg (about 22 lbs) of fat to be oxidized, or burned up, 29 kg of oxygen have to be inhaled.” That’s a lot of air to suck up. Hey… wait a minute, isn’t this heavy breathing what happens when you exercise?

Precisely! When we exercise we are breathing in more air, which helps us shed the pounds. However, don’t think that just sitting still and breathing harder will do the trick.

“If you sit still in a chair and you start breathing more than required, that’s hyperventilation and you’ll get tingly fingers and palpitations and if you keep going too long you’ll faint,” lead author Ruben Meerman says.

“The breathing faster is definitely what you need to do, but you have to do it because your body needs to get rid of more carbon dioxide because you’re exercising.”

Learn more about the interesting study here.