Saturday, April 9, 2011

Muscle vs. Fat

Q: As I progressed through my strength training at Fitness First, I have noticed a change in my physical appearance and my clothes fitting looser, but my weight has stayed about the same. Why?

A: Strength training is a very efficient weight modification activity. As clients progress through the strength training appointments, they will gain lean muscle. Each pound of muscle gained requires an additional 50 calories a day to sustain itself. So, with no other changes in diet or activity level, strength training will lead to gains in muscle and a reduction in fat because you are continually burning calories throughout your day.

In terms of why clothes fit differently or why your physical appearance changes with no change in scale weight, the answer is due to the fact that muscle is more dense that fat.

A pound of lean muscle takes up less space than a pound of fat. In fact, a pound of fat will be at least twice the volume as a pound of muscle.

The key is to focus on qualitative measures of health such as fat composition, cholesterol levels, and blood pressure rather than focusing on quantitative measure of health such as body weight or body mass index.