This article explanes Muscle VS Fat and why you may not appear to be loseing weight.
Does Muscle Weigh More Than Fat?
While a pound of muscle weighs a pound and a pound of fat weighs a pound as well, we often hear the comment that muscle weights more than fat. Or that a pound of fat takes up more room than a pound of muscle and so while some people may not see any weight loss while trying to lose weight, they may see their clothes are fitting way looser and think this has to do with the difference in the "weight" of muscle and of fat.

Muscle vs. Fat: Clearing Up the Misconception

Common sense tells us a pound of muscle and a pound of fat have to weigh the same, but they do differ in density. This means if you look at five pounds of muscle and five pounds of fat side by side, the fat takes up more volume, or space, than the muscle.

Muscle boosts a person’s metabolism, so a pound of muscle will burn more calories at rest than a pound of fat. What does this mean? Even when you’re not exercising — you could be sitting on the couch watching TV — you will be burning more calories just by having more muscle.

Muscle has other benefits, too. It’s critical in improving bone density and helps prevent the loss of muscle mass that occurs with aging, allowing people to stay active as they get older.


So, let's take a closer look at this issue.

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

yourself 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 -10 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. Not much.

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.

A friendly bump for healthy living and weight training

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The info in that article is exactly why I tell people to stay off the scales when working out and dieting. People get too attached to the scale and get discouraged because they aren't "losing weight". You can ask how they LOOK, but for some reason that is seldom any comfort for a person obsessed with actual body weight.

You also need to know that people often say "growing muscles".

In fact, most people don't grow muscles. I remember reading a story about a study done on collegiate athletes who underwent an extreme year long body building regiment and they concluded that with serious body building the most any of the young collegiate athlete gained was 7% muscle mass.

There are other studies that show that an average person, once past their youth prime will loose 10% muscle mass every 10-years for the rest of their life.

So you won't be able to regain any muscle mass the older you get. People can "bulk" up, but what is happening is that they are filling their muscle fibers with more blood and other fillers, but you aren't gaining additional muscle mass or muscle fibers.

They have done test on birds, by putting weights on one wing and nothing on the other and came up with the same conclusion that muscle mass is never really gained, but in fact you loose it over time.

Fat cells on the other hand, with the exception of liposuction, you are born with the same number of fat cells that you have now as an adult. The difference is that your fat cells are filled up like a balloon and will keep on filling to the size of the mom on "Who's Eating Gilbert Grape". But when you loose fat, you aren't loosing fat cells, just the fillers inside the cells.

What burned fat is oxygen and the Kreb Cycle.

So much for my efforts to get the Superman v-cut. Damn.

I'm gonna say I have a LOT of doubt about the validity of that "study". There's an enormous hole in that theory which is that it doesn't explain how a person who works out would get stronger. Blood and other "fillers" aren't going to contribute to an increase in muscle capability. I realize there's a coordination aspect in that the muscles learn how to more effectively work together to accomplish a particular motion which can resemble an increase in muscle, but that would only account for a slight increase.
Also, there's a very big difference between working out to develop strictly muscle size, and muscle strength. And even in developing strength, there are a handful of different kinds of strength, including twitch, static, and motion. And the training for each of those is different.

Yeah. After doing a bit of research I'm gonna say that study (if it even really exists) is pure bullcrap.

http://www.unm.edu/~lkravit...r/musclesgrowLK.html

Special mention to this paragraph:

Aging also mediates cellular changes in muscle decreasing the actual muscle mass. This loss of muscle mass is referred to as sarcopenia. Happily, the detrimental effects of aging on muscle have been shown be restrained or even reversed with regular resistance exercise. Importantly, resistance exercise also improves the connective tissue harness surrounding muscle, thus being most beneficial for injury prevention and in physical rehabilitation therapy.

[This message has been edited by Taijiguy (edited 10-10-2012).]

I was thinking that can't be true as well. My brother in law started out when he was youngerish in the 160 or so range, now he pushes 225-240. His arms are as big as my neck for crying out loud. So you're telling me this guy didn't build any muscle? He is stronger than crap.

I can't attest personally too much one way or another, I've only been as high as 155-160 lifting weights, and I used to be 145. Today I float about 150 and I'm almost all muscle so I will not complain

quote Originally posted by Taijiguy: I'm gonna say I have a LOT of doubt about the validity of that "study". There's an enormous hole in that theory which is that it doesn't explain how a person who works out would get stronger. Blood and other "fillers" aren't going to contribute to an increase in muscle capability. I realize there's a coordination aspect in that the muscles learn how to more effectively work together to accomplish a particular motion which can resemble an increase in muscle, but that would only account for a slight increase. Also, there's a very big difference between working out to develop strictly muscle size, and muscle strength. And even in developing strength, there are a handful of different kinds of strength, including twitch, static, and motion. And the training for each of those is different. Yeah. After doing a bit of research I'm gonna say that study (if it even really exists) is pure bullcrap. http://www.unm.edu/~lkravit...r/musclesgrowLK.html Special mention to this paragraph: Aging also mediates cellular changes in muscle decreasing the actual muscle mass. This loss of muscle mass is referred to as sarcopenia. Happily, the detrimental effects of aging on muscle have been shown be restrained or even reversed with regular resistance exercise. Importantly, resistance exercise also improves the connective tissue harness surrounding muscle, thus being most beneficial for injury prevention and in physical rehabilitation therapy.

From WIKI:

"Independent of strength and performance measures, muscles can be induced to grow larger by a number of factors, including hormone signaling, developmental factors, strength training, and disease. Contrary to popular belief, the number of muscle fibres cannot be increased through exercise. Instead, muscles grow larger through a combination of muscle cell growth as new protein filaments are added along with additional mass provided by undifferentiated satellite cells alongside the existing muscle cells.[11] Muscle fibres have a limited capacity for growth through hypertrophy and some believe they split through hyperplasia if subject to increased demand.[citation needed]

Biological factors such as age and hormone levels can affect muscle hypertrophy. During puberty in males, hypertrophy occurs at an accelerated rate as the levels of growth-stimulating hormones produced by the body increase. Natural hypertrophy normally stops at full growth in the late teens."

"Sarcopenia (from the Greek meaning "poverty of flesh") is the degenerative loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength associated with aging (0.5-1% loss per year after the age of 25)."

The fact remains that everybody will loose muscle mass. Yes, you can slow it down or even reverse it through extensive weight training, but you can never gain or reach the peak that you can achieve at your youth. If you peaked (non-steroids/HGH use) at age 25, you can never go beyond that. You can only sustain it in the short term and you will eventually loose it by age.

If you were a lazy smuck at your youth, yes you can be stronger and bigger than you were at the age of 40 through intensive weight training, but the fact remains is that you do loose it eventually.

Arnold Schwarzenegger can never be as strong or big as he once was.

God, this is going downhill fast. Can I hope it fit in the same pants?

Muscle weighs more than fat, per unit of volume. So for example, a cubic inch of muscle will weigh more than a cubic inch of fat. That's where the saying comes from.

When I joined the US Army, I only weighed 145 pounds. By the end of Basic Training, my body weight was up to 155 pounds. In other words, I gained 10 pounds in about 3 months. And it was not fat. Plus, my metabolism skyrocketed. If the information in the article is true, then that shouldn't have been possible.

That said, I do agree that people fixate too much on body weight. The number on the weight scale is not a very accurate yardstick. BMI charts aren't completely reliable, either. For example, the BMI charts say I'm borderline overweight, even though I'm relatively thin. The lean muscle mass throws the chart off.

[This message has been edited by Blacktree (edited 10-11-2012).]

quote Originally posted by Blacktree:That said, I do agree that people fixate too much on body weight. The number on the weight scale is not a very accurate yardstick. BMI charts aren't completely reliable, either. For example, the BMI charts say I'm borderline overweight, even though I'm relatively thin. + The lean muscle mass throws the chart off.

Same. The article does not seem completely accurate.
I can no longer do what I could at 145 and 24 tears old but, tough at 200 pounds.

quote Originally posted by TK: God, this is going downhill fast. Can I hope it fit in the same pants?

I don't mean it to go downhill, just want to point out that the facts are facts. I don't expect Taijiguy to ever post back, but the older you get the more the uphill battle it is to keep in shape.

It's hard to keep up. I know. Back in my youth I wasn't working out as much as I do now. I use to weigh something like 165 at 6'1". So I was a skinny dude. Now I weigh 205lb with a 30" waist, buff and cut with a hard 6-pack stomach at the age of 35. I just got back from working out. You are talking about several hours a day at least 5-days a week to keep up that physic. But I'm realistic and know I cannot keep it up forever. I can only look like a cage fighter for so long before I start to degenerate into a wrinkly old man. So long as my pecker works, I think I'm ok.

These two were part of the study.


The man out weighs the hog?

What weighs more a pound of feathers or a pound of lead?

quote Originally posted by Wichita: I don't mean it to go downhill, just want to point out that the facts are facts. I don't expect Taijiguy to ever post back, but the older you get the more the uphill battle it is to keep in shape. It's hard to keep up. I know. Back in my youth I wasn't working out as much as I do now. I use to weigh something like 165 at 6'1". So I was a skinny dude. Now I weigh 205lb with a 30" waist, buff and cut with a hard 6-pack stomach at the age of 35. I just got back from working out. You are talking about several hours a day at least 5-days a week to keep up that physic. But I'm realistic and know I cannot keep it up forever. I can only look like a cage fighter for so long before I start to degenerate into a wrinkly old man. So long as my pecker works, I think I'm ok.

At 58, I am well into my drunken slide into obscurity.

quote Originally posted by Old Lar: What weighs more a pound of feathers or a pound of lead?

Better yet...

An ounce of feathers or an ounce of gold?

Kevin

[This message has been edited by Lambo nut (edited 10-11-2012).]

yup.
when I was going to the gym, I started losing weight. to a point. then stayed steady. but, I did change shape. my pants were looser, my shirts were tighter.

also, I noticed a slight difference on how low I sank in water/floating. which made me think a fine BMI check would be to go by buoyancy, not by weight/height.

quote Originally posted by Old Lar:What weighs more a pound of feathers or a pound of lead?

I tear open the bag that contains both and tell you to carry the feathers. I carry the pound of lead and I am sure to beat you inside.

quote Originally posted by Wichita: I don't mean it to go downhill, just want to point out that the facts are facts. I don't expect Taijiguy to ever post back, but the older you get the more the uphill battle it is to keep in shape. It's hard to keep up. I know. Back in my youth I wasn't working out as much as I do now. I use to weigh something like 165 at 6'1". So I was a skinny dude. Now I weigh 205lb with a 30" waist, buff and cut with a hard 6-pack stomach at the age of 35. I just got back from working out. You are talking about several hours a day at least 5-days a week to keep up that physic. But I'm realistic and know I cannot keep it up forever. I can only look like a cage fighter for so long before I start to degenerate into a wrinkly old man. So long as my pecker works, I think I'm ok.

I don't know why you think I wouldn't post, I'm not hiding from anything. Frankly, what I saw it looks like your summation wasn't exactly what the wiki article said. I'm just not going to argue about it. I posted a medical document from a university, you posted a wiki article. Choose for yourself what you prefer to believe.

'Synthetic' muscle ('Grown' using steroids etc), is just that:synthetic. It doesn't last. The only wayto sustain muscle is to USE it, and work it hard.
I used to do a lot of weight training in my teens and twenties, and always weighed the same. 155lbs. When I stopped (injured my shoulder playing rugby), I LOST weight, and yet got fatter. But the muscle is always there, and just needs to be toned up again.
When I talk about 'synthetic' muscle, just take a look at Arnie NOW . Same age as me (65), and yet he looks terrible. Gone 'soft' through not using his muscles, and sags all over the place. And because his muscles were built on steroids, he will never get that 'tone' back again. Not even if he worked out every day, because the muscle was synthetically created. And because they grew abnormally big, his skin and flesh tissue was stretched way beyond its 'design', and collapsed.



Because my muscle is 'natural', it has stayed within the shape it was desgned to be, and is easily brought back again. By using them. I might not be building 'new' muscle', but simply expanding them back to 'full size' by working them hard.
When I lost weight earlier this year, I went from 190lbs to 154lbs. But I am BIGGER now in my upper torso than when I was fat!!
And since I have been working every day at a labour-intensive schedule, I have put on weight again...but not fat. So that would indicate that muscle is heavier, because it is denser than fat. And because it is denser, it takes up less space than fat
Anybody who sys theycan't get into shape in their sixties, is fooling themselves .

quote Originally posted by Taijiguy: I don't know why you think I wouldn't post, I'm not hiding from anything. Frankly, what I saw it looks like your summation wasn't exactly what the wiki article said. I'm just not going to argue about it. I posted a medical document from a university, you posted a wiki article. Choose for yourself what you prefer to believe.

Well you need to re-read your document then. The Wiki article cites 24-medial studies from NASA's Research to The American Journal of Physiology. Even the lone entry of Sarcopenia cites 11 of them.

Your opinion was that there has to be something more than just fillers in muscles. Your own linked source says nothing to support your opinion and only mentions that muscles just fill up and in fact confirms that natural degeneration of muscle mass happens, only confirming what I have been saying.

You called in to question that what I was saying was bull, well it wasn't and your source and any of them on Wiki only supports it. The fact remains that you do not grow more muscle after your peak age of your youth. You can only fill them. I was stating a study I read that had collegiate athletes (prime athletic people in their early 20's) through extensive training were only able to gain an maximum 7% more mass and after that they will degenerate into natural sarcopenia and will never be able to sustain their peak.

I will give you credit though for underscoring one point. Yes, it is possible to restrained and reverse rapid sarcopenia effects on your muscles. But that is only if you are way under your prime condition of your age. But all the medical studies have shown that people start to loose muscle mass at 1% a year, or what I stated 10% every 10-years (same thing). You can only reach a peak and that peak muscle mass weight is early 20's. If you never achieved your peak at the age of 22 and are a lard butt for decades and then decided to work out at the age of 40, sure you can be bigger and gain more muscle mass, but your peak will be 20% less muscle mass at the age of 40 then it would be for your peak at the age of 20. Fact!

Your medical document speaks specifically about muscle hypertrophy. What is hypertrophy? Hypertrophy is the increase in the volume of an organ or tissue due to the enlargement of its component cells. Your very source says that you only "fill" your muscles, you don't grow new muscle fibers.

Actually, Wichita,you CAN enlarge muscles, and it is done by exerting more force than they really are capable of, and the tissues 'rupture', and the healing process will make your muscles bigger.Which is why most excercise regimes require a period of intense effort, followed by a 'recuperation' period, to allow muscles to adapt and repair. That is where the 'no pain-no gain' comes from, I believe.
Otherwise, how can you explain why my muscles have grown a LOT, even though I am 65? Sure, the expenditure of energy above 'normal' will cause muscles to store more 'energy', and therefore swell. I know if I don't excercise regulary (work ), it takes longer to 'refill' my muscle mass than when I was younger.. And it 'empties' far quicker now if I DON'T do any physically taxing work.That is why I feel beat after a period of not working, and then going back to it. The 'pain' barrier, in other words . It can take up to a couple of days work before I don't notice any weakness.

quote Originally posted by James Bond 007: Does Muscle Weigh More Than Fat?

Which weighs more ... a pound of lead or a pound of feathers?

That said, fat is generally less dense than muscle tissue.

[This message has been edited by Marvin McInnis (edited 10-12-2012).]

How old is that pic nick? You look in prety good shape for your age.

quote Originally posted by Wichita: You also need to know that people often say "growing muscles". In fact, most people don't grow muscles. I remember reading a story about a study done on collegiate athletes who underwent an extreme year long body building regiment and they concluded that with serious body building the most any of the young collegiate athlete gained was 7% muscle mass. There are other studies that show that an average person, once past their youth prime will loose 10% muscle mass every 10-years for the rest of their life. So you won't be able to regain any muscle mass the older you get. People can "bulk" up, but what is happening is that they are filling their muscle fibers with more blood and other fillers, but you aren't gaining additional muscle mass or muscle fibers. <snip>

Frankly more than your source, I was calling out your statements in your summary, specifically the one in bold. I actually said that earlier, albeit less specifically.
You *can* regain muscle mass when you get older. You made no qualifications regarding that, you just made a flat statement that in its essence isn't true. You can also regain strength when you're older. I realize that as we age we naturally lose muscle mass, I'm not challenging that. If all we do is sit around and do nothing, then yes, we will lose muscle mass. But if you sit around and then start using using resistance training, you will REGAIN muscle mass, I don't care how old they are. I also realize that later in life, one could never reach the peak of their youth, provided they ever reached that peak in the first place, which most people don't.

Aside from anything else, I will call out any claim that you can't regain muscle mass, period. Mainly, because I'm living prove that you can, and I don't believe I'm all that special. From ages 30 to 40 I was a contractor. I worked 17-18 hours days routinely, and did most of the work by myself, building decks, basement finishing, you name it. And, I did most of the work by myself. I used to carry 2 sheets of 1/2 drywall at once down into basements. I could GRIP and lift 80lbs bags of concrete in each hand. I would go on but you probably wouldn't believe me. (And by the way, those capabilities were developed closer to 40 than 30, and were the results of the work itself, not any additional time in a gym)
From the ages of 40 to about 49 I moved out of contracting into work that had me more sedentary. Basically, I went from being an ox to a cow. I have no idea what my capabilities were, I barely ever tested them.
At age 49 I decided I didn't want to live that way any more and started working out, something I hate. I like to be *productive* when I work. Working for the purpose of working out always seemed like a waste. But I joined up with a boot camp program. In 6 moths I went from using 5 pound weights for full body workouts to using 20-35 pound weights in full body workouts. My leg press doubled, and all my other lifting went up exponentially.
Now, does that mean I could do what I did when I was in my 30s? No, I'm not saying that. But what I AM saying is that to just flat out claim you can't regain muscle mass or strength later in life, is false.

What you said above MAY have elements of truth, however, they have to be in context, which you didn't define. That's where I took issue.

As a side note on the study you refer to, using athletes for the study is probably a horrible choice to determine the ability to develop muscle mass. First off, an athlete is already going to be in top physical condition and largely at their peak. Second, unless they're the front line of a football team or a weightlifter or bodybuilder, or something along those lines, most athletes are working to develop trigger muscles and flexibility as opposed to raw strength and lifting power. It's the trigger and reflex muscles that give them the speed and agility for their sport. The training techniques for raw lifting power and strength development is completely different from speed training, and speed training does little to develop mass. So the specifics of their training regime are pretty vital to the statistic.

Edit: This is probably only remotely related, but I found it fascinating. Training for world class athletes such as Olympians is as almost as much in a lab as a gym. They study the athletes form and movements and help them to refine them down with within fractions of an inch. This gives them greater efficiency and can increase their speed by hundredths of a second- possibly the difference between a win and a loss.

http://www.wired.com/playbo...2/06/ff_superhumans/

[This message has been edited by Taijiguy (edited 10-12-2012).]

I agree somewhat with Taijiguy. The key thing to remember is that people *tend* to lose muscle mass as they age. It's a general tendency, not a written-in-stone rule. You can counteract the general tendency, at least for awhile, with the right strategy. But eventually, time will take its toll. You will eventually reach a break-even point. And after that, it's all downhill. IMO, the age at which you reach that break-even point is largely affected by your lifestyle. I imagine genetics plays a role, too.

quote Originally posted by fierofetish: Because my muscle is 'natural', it has stayed within the shape it was desgned to be, and is easily brought back again. By using them. I might not be building 'new' muscle', but simply expanding them back to 'full size' by working them hard. When I lost weight earlier this year, I went from 190lbs to 154lbs. But I am BIGGER now in my upper torso than when I was fat!! And since I have been working every day at a labour-intensive schedule, I have put on weight again...but not fat. So that would indicate that muscle is heavier, because it is denser than fat. And because it is denser, it takes up less space than fat Anybody who sys theycan't get into shape in their sixties, is fooling themselves .

Looking good Nick. I do P90X because I like a balance between muscle mass and BMI. And my weight and shape has not changed much at all. I just get more tone and more "solid".

Diet is the key to fat loss. I had a friend in college who was a body builder. He would basically starve himself with a nearly pure protein diet the last 6 or 7 days before a show. He said, you can do all the sit ups you like, you will not get those ripped abs without losing that last bit of tummy fat because it is the first place extra fat goes and the last place to lose it. Personally, I'm happy with a little tummy fat.

I'm actually going to be finding out firsthand.

2 weeks ago I drew the line and started to follow a more healthy eating regime. I have been drinking 95% water over the last month (the 5% is when I eat out, college student with long hours...). I'm still eating everything I want including junk food 2x a week (just had a burger and fries from Hooters last night lol), however eating more frequently with smaller portions. I normally would eat once or twice a day, 2 massive meals for breakfast and dinner. Now I'm eating 3x with smaller helpings.

I weigh myself nekid on the same scale every night before a shower. The heaviest I've been was 180lbs this summer after a long vacation of lots of alcohol, massive portions multiple times a day. Before I started this "diet", I was at 173.5. I've been losing half a pound every night on average, now down to 167lbs after 2 weeks. I've noticed an increase of the speed of my metabolism.

I plan to get down to155lbs (I'm just under 5' 10"), and attempt to increase muscle mass from there without any protein or supplements. Just straight up working out, looking forward to see how the weight will play out.

quote Originally posted by James Bond 007: How old is that pic nick? You look in prety good shape for your age.

About 5 months ago...

quote Originally posted by Taijiguy: Edit: This is probably only remotely related, but I found it fascinating. Training for world class athletes such as Olympians is as almost as much in a lab as a gym. They study the athletes form and movements and help them to refine them down with within fractions of an inch. This gives them greater efficiency and can increase their speed by hundredths of a second- possibly the difference between a win and a loss. http://www.wired.com/playbo...2/06/ff_superhumans/

Can you image if doping was legal?