The "Muscle weights more than fat" idea

[kpolninja]

I understand that a pound of muscle weighs a pound and a pound of fat weighs a pound as well, but that a pound of fat takes up more room than a pound of muscle...

That being said, I've been working out considerably and I can see a change in my mucle definition, my clothes are fitting way looser, but the scale does not change. I know there is water retention to think about, and did I last eat...all those things.

My question is this - is it reasonable to think that you would rise on the scale temporarily because you are in the process of building muscle and loosing fat, or is that just rediculous. It seems crazy to me that you would be building muscle so quickly and loosing fat so quickly that it would make a difference on the scale...

Sombody please explain!

[JeffN]

I understand that a pound of muscle weighs a pound and a pound of fat weighs a pound as well, but that a pound of fat takes up more room than a pound of muscle...

That being said, I've been working out considerably and I can see a change in my mucle definition, my clothes are fitting way looser, but the scale does not change. I know there is water retention to think about, and did I last eat...all those things.

My question is this - is it reasonable to think that you would rise on the scale temporarily because you are in the process of building muscle and loosing fat, or is that just rediculous. It seems crazy to me that you would be building muscle so quickly and loosing fat so quickly that it would make a difference on the scale...

Sombody please explain!

The human body naturally can change several pounds a day in weight from water balance alone. This is not fat or muscle weight. This is why if you choose to micro-manage your weight and weigh yourself very frequently, you may see fluctuations that have nothing to do with changes in fat and/or muscle. Weight yourself before going to bed, and then weight youself in the morning when you wake up. You may see a 2-5 lb difference. I have seen the actual weight of someone change around 20 lbs in a day just from changes in fluid balance. Granted it was a very large person on a very hot summer day who had been working out all day in the sun. This is also why I do not recommend anyone weigh themselves more than 1x a week when losing weight and when they do weight themselves to do it on the same scale at the same time of the day wearing the same clothes. Weighing yourself naked in the early morning after voiding is the best and most accurate weight

However, if your weight stayed exactly the same and we theortecially took off 5 lbs of fat from you and replaced it with 5 lbs of muscle, you would weigh exactly the same, but because muscle is more "dense" than fat, the 5 lbs of muscle takes up less space and so you would appear slightly leaner and/or thinner.

A person can not add actual true muscle weight though without being in a calorie excess. A starving person who lifts weight is not going to build much muscle if at all and they are not going to gain weight without having the extra raw material available for the muscle to be build. You can't build something from nothing. They may become leaner looking. Now, if they were able to build some muscle, they will do at the cost of some other tissue as you can not violate the laws of physics. So, it is possible that they may burn up some of their fat and use those calories to help build some muscle but it would not be much muscle at all.

No one builds just muscle and/or fat or loses just muscle and/or fat. So, if you are truly gaining weight is is because you have added some fat, muscle and/or water.

The actual amount of muscle someone may gain in a year on a truly healthy diet without supplements/medication and/or excessive protein, is actually quite small and for a women may be 8 lbs in a year and for a man a little more. Divide that by 52 and that is about what you may be gaining in a week, on average.

Now, there is something else that can happen that will result in a weight gain and will show up in the muscle tissue and may increase the size of the muscle and it is not more muscle. It is glycogen (which is 75% water). Glycogen is stored glucose and the body stores about 2-6 lbs or more and does so in muscle tissue. So, if you are glyogen depleted in anyway and go on this program, you will fill your glycogen stores and you may see yourself gaining a few lbs and appear a little leaner and/or musclular. There are actual studies documenting this phenomenon and showing changes in muscle weight and size (and % Body Fat) coming striclty from increased glycogen stores.

The answer is, keep doing the right thing and keep your eyes on the bigger picture. If you are not losing weight as fast as you would like (though slower weight loss is best, especially for body composition issues), then adjust the calorie density of your meals and/or your activity levels and do not worry about minor fluctuations in weight along the way.

In Health
Jeff

[kpolninja]

Thanks Jeff! This is kind of what I thought.

[JeffN]

Thanks Jeff! This is kind of what I thought.

You are welcome

Weighing yourself on a scale, as I mentioned above on a weekly basis is the best method to tell if you are in a negative calorie balance. On average, you should be able to safely and healthfully lose about 1% of your weight a week and maybe evev more. That is an average over time and some weeks will be better and some weeks will be less. While it may not seem like much, if you multiply the number out by 12 weeks or 24 weeks or 52 weeks, this could be 24, 48 or 100 lbs lost.

If weight is not coming off as fast as you would like, then you have to make some adjustments to what you are doing. There are several adjustments you can make in regard to the caloric in end and the caloric out end.

In regard to calories out, you have three areas you can adjust which are frequency, intensity and time (FIT). You can exercise on more days or more times in a day, you can raise the intensity of your exericse, and/or you can do it for a longer period of time.

In regard to calories out, you can lower the calorie density of the diet, by shifting the composition of your meals to include more foods that are the lowest in calorie density (vegetables, salads, soups, etc)

In addition, the following items are also known (and proven) to reduce calorie intake

- Calorie density- Make sure 1/3 to 1/2 of the bulk/volume of all your meals are low calorie dense vegetables

- Salt - the less you salt your food, the less people tend to eat

- Variety- the less variety, the less consumption

- Raw Foods - Foods you can eat raw tend to be lower in calorie density and you may not digest as efficiently. Cooking begins the digestion process.

- Sequencing - Eating the lowest calorie dense foods first, fills you up so you eat less of the higher calorie dense foods

- Make sure you are avoiding all higher fat, calorie dense plant foods, nuts, seeds, oils, avocados, tofu, etc

- Make sure you are avoiding all refined processed grains and starches, (breads, bagels, crackers, cookies, dry cereal, etc and anything made from ground up flour) even if they are whole grain

-Avoid all refined concentrated sugars/sweeteners, even if they are natural and organic

If you do this, and make adjustments as necessary, you will lose weight.

In Health
Jeff