It is true that muscle weighs more than fat. All you have to do is a Google search and you will get thousands of websites that tell you all about how fat weighs more. So if you are trying to lose weight and build muscle at the same time, and muscle weighs more than fat, how exactly do you lose weight?
This is where a lot of people get confused. Everyone is in a hurry to lose weight by showing a lower reading on that enemy known as the scale. I am sure you have done this before. In the morning you step on the scale it shows one hundred fifty pounds. You eat right all week, exercise, hit the weights, do some cardio and so on, and then weigh yourself again the following week.
Much to your amazement you stare down at that pesky scale and it now reads one hundred forty-nine and a half pounds. The good part is you lost a half of a pound. The bad part is you only lost a half of a pound. These types of results can be discouraging to a lot of people. The fact is that even though the scale isn't going down, or at least going down at a rate you would like, if you are exercising and eating right chances are that fat is being replaced with a higher volume of muscle tissue.
What I recommend you do first is get rid of that traditional analog bathroom scale that you own. You know the one that when you step on it it seems to spin around a few times before landing on what your weight is. Instead replace it with the newer scales that also tell you your bodyfat content in the terms of a percentage number. I won't go into detail as to how the machine operates (you can read that in the manual they provide), but I will tell you that along with monitoring your weight you need to keep track of your bodyfat percentage. These new scales are a good practical and economically efficient way of doing this.
It is this percentage number that tells you how much of your body mass is fat. The lower the number the less amount of bodyfat your body contains. So using our numbers above if you weighed 150 pounds at 20% bodyfat and then the following week you weight 149 ½ pounds at 18% bodyfat you can easily see that you decreased the amount of bodyfat while increasing muscle mass.
Muscle burns fat. That has been proven in a number of scientific studies around the globe. Although you can not increase the number of muscle cells your body has (sorry people whatever your body has in terms of number of cells is all you get), you can increase their volume or size. When you do this the larger muscles need more energy to burn to maintain that size. So where does it get that energy from? Exactly your fat cells!
If you want to lose that flabby midsection or those “thunder” thighs you need to build up your muscle volume. Workout 3 to 4 days per week using weights where you do at least one exercise for each body part. Supplement that with 3 days of cardiovascular exercises (usually performed on days not doing weights) and finally eat a healthy diet. You should consume 6 meals daily, eating every 2 ½ to 3 hours with equal portions of protein, carbohydrates and vegetables.
Now turn the television off and get started. In a few short weeks you can be on your way to a leaner, more muscular, healthy new you!
