willgetyoufit

By: Will Power

One of the biggest fallacies made by many who are new to fitness, and some who aren’t, is stressing the idea that muscle weighs more that fat.  I’ve heard this term used so frequently amongst even my clients that I felt it my duty to dispel this gross misconception for everyone.  So, cutting straight to the chase, a pound of fat weighs exactly the same as a pound of muscle.  A pound is a pound no matter how you present it, cut it, separate it or compound it.  A pound of steel weighs exactly the same as a pound of feathers.  But if that’s the case then where did this misconception come from in the first place?  Well I would have to imagine its based around the fact that muscle is considerably more dense than fat, meaning volumetrically it would take more fat to make up that pound than it would if that pound were made up of muscle.  For those of you who did homework for other classes all through basic chemistry, ill explain.  Since muscle is denser, it weighs more per unit of space.  Picture it like a 2” steel ball that weighs 1 pound on a balance beam and on the other side you have to place 5 packs of loose leaf paper in order to equal out that pound on the beam.  Obviously the packet takes up way more space than the 2” steel ball but being that the ball is denser (i.e. weighs more per unit of space) the smaller ball is equal to the 5 packs in weight.  That being said, if you take a 5” x 5” x 5” cube of muscle and one of fat, the muscle will weigh more simply because of its higher density and compactness.  This is the primary reason many people can look up to 30lbs less than they actually are simply because of their muscle to fat ratio.

Now, why is this important you ask? Well, the fact of the matter is as you resistance train, it is inevitable that you will gain a few pounds, sometimes even when on a weight loss program.  A little bit of muscle goes a long way trust me. However, the difference between weight gained trough resistance training and weight gained from canoodling that thanksgiving turkey is that you are gaining lean muscle mass.  You will look and feel slimmer but that scale won’t be consoling.  This is frankly why I tell people for the most part “F” the scale (for lack of a better term).  The scale may tell you how much you weigh but it doesn’t tell you how much of it is fat and how much is muscle.  The best judge of progress is how your clothes fit, how you look in the mirror at home and better yet how you feel overall.

In sum, muscle does not weigh more than fat, it is simply denser.  However, muscle is way more metabolically active so it allows you to burn more calories with less effort.  The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn.  So when it comes down to a discussion of muscle vs. fat the only thing you need to know is that you want to build muscle and shrink fat.