Not to jump on anyones toes here since I'm new, but I agree with Leigh! This area is called the
HARSH TRUTH for a reason! It's not so that we can dance around the topic of
weight loss and training. This is a place for people to come ONLY after they have added a few layers of leather if they are easily offended.
As you can see, the 5 lbs. of fat is much bulkier than the 5 lbs. of muscle, but five pounds is still five pounds. Muscle does not weigh more than fat.
I'm glad to have those around who have no problem calling out people for giving out false and/or incorrect information.
Another explanation:
[url="http://health.learninginfo.org/weight-lifting-program2.htm"]That
myth being one of the most popular in the world of exercise, which is, “Muscle weighs more than
fat.”
How ridiculous is that saying?
That's like the old joke, “Which weighs more — 10 lbs. of steel or 10 lbs. of feathers?”
Hopefully by now you know that the answer to that question is that they both really weigh the same. 10 lbs. is 10 lbs. no matter what it is made of.
Let's go over this in a little more detail.
Muscle is much more compact and dense than
fat. It actually takes up less space than
fat does because of that. That makes sense, right?
Fat, on the other hand, is very soft and jelly-like and is a lot bigger than muscle. By that I mean it takes up more space than muscle does.
Let me give you another example to clarify this a little more.
If you were to take 10 lbs. of
fat and 10 lbs. of muscle and roll each of them into a ball, the 10 lbs. of
fat might be the size of a bowling ball. In comparison, the 10 lbs. of muscle would be about the size of a baseball.
Let's take this a step further and use you and your friend in an example. You and your friend, for argument's sake, are both 5' 5" tall and both weigh the exact same weight of 130 lbs.
Your friend, as we mentioned, does not lift
weights or do any kind of
strength training. Her dress size is a size 12.
You, on the other hand, lift
weights and follow a strength-training program 3 times a week. Your dress size is a size 8.
If you and your friend were standing side by side people would definitely think that you weighed less than your friend. But in reality you both weigh exactly the same.
How can that be?
It all relates back to what I said earlier. Muscle does not weigh more than
fat, it weighs the same. It is more compact than
fat and it takes up less space. So you, the strength trainer, have more muscle than your friend does which means you will take up less space.
