Home▸Medical Technology & Imaging Physics▸The Respiratory Quotient: What Your Breath Reveals About What You're Burning

🫁 The Respiratory Quotient: What Your Breath Reveals About What You're Burning

Explore the respiratory quotient (RQ), the ratio of carbon dioxide produced to oxygen consumed, and learn how it reveals whether your body is burning carbohydrate, fat, or protein.

Medical Technology & Imaging Physics3DModerate60 FPS🔥 Fire

This simulator demonstrates how the respiratory quotient shifts along a continuum from about 0.7 to 1.0 depending on the proportion of fat versus carbohydrate being metabolized, and how it can even exceed 1.0 during active lipogenesis.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

🎮 How to Use

Adjust the fuel mix or overfeeding sliders to see how the calculated RQ changes in real time, and compare the resulting value against the reference points for pure fat, protein, and carbohydrate oxidation.

💡 Did You Know?

During intense sprint exercise, RQ can temporarily rise above 1.0 not from lipogenesis but from rapid buffering of lactic acid, which releases extra carbon dioxide independent of fuel oxidation.

⚙ Under the hood

Explore the respiratory quotient (RQ), the ratio of carbon dioxide produced to oxygen consumed, and learn how it reveals whether your body is burning carbohydrate, fat, or protein.

respiratory quotientmetabolismindirect calorimetryenergy expenditurefuel oxidationsports sciencenutrition sciencephysiology

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install