The math of fat loss has two basic elements that includes the input of energy and output of energy. However, your body is not a mathematical machine, it is a biological entity.
Your body processes different type of foods in different ways. And different exercises impact your body differently.
The way your body processes oil depends on the type of oil your consuming. The processing of oils form the basis of coconut oil and weight loss.
Coconut oil includes medium chain fatty acids. All the fats and oils are composed of fat molecules juggled fatty acids.
You’re familiar with saturation classification that like saturated fatty acids, monounsaturated fatty acids, and polyunsaturated fatty acids.
Size of the molecules is another way to classify fatty acids or oils. You can have short, medium, or long chain fatty acids.
Both the saturation and size of fatty acids impacts how your body processes fats and what happens to it during the processing.
A byproduct of processing foods within the body is creating heat. This is called the thermogenic effect of food. The more heat a food type generates, the more efficient it is running in your body. Efficiency in this case means conversion of food into heat instead of fat.
Some research indicates that medium chain fatty acids have greater thermogenic effects than other fats like olive oil and butter. (1)
From caloric point of view, each gram of oil contains nine calories. That is the mathematics of weight loss. Research in weight loss has shown that that biologically, your body converts some fat to heat better. Coconut oil is an example of these fats and the connection is the medium size of the fatty acids within coconut oil.
Substituting other forms of oil with coconut oil could mean that you convert more of the low-calorie into heat instead of adding it your thigh or your belly.
Remember that biology does not override math. It just modifies it. If you take the thermogenic benefit of coconut oil into account and still consume more than you spend, your body fat will increase.