Is it true that muscle weighs more than fat? Comparison of fat and muscle weight. How much does fat weigh? How does excess weight appear? What about the experienced ones? Is it possible to burn fat and grow muscle at the same time for those who have been doing strength training for a long time?

Many people who decide to lose weight correctly, that is, with the help of fitness, often explain the fact that the scales have frozen by saying that muscles are heavier than fat. Allegedly, their weight is due to the fact that when they exercise, they replace fat with muscles that weigh more.

Is it really? Let's figure it out.

After a month in the rocking chair, you begin to look arrogantly at the chickens that keep running to the scales.

You are not like that. You understand that weight loss and fat loss are two different things. Weight loss can occur not only due to fat loss, but also due to the loss of muscle mass, water, and feces.

You robotically repeat that you are “flooded” with PMS and milk, and “the scale arrow is not an indicator, because muscles are heavier than fat.”

Chill out, chickens. The scale arrow is an indicator even for me. Not to mention your flabby asses.

Yes, I really don’t like the question: “Lena, what is your weight?”

For this very reason:

Yes, we have all seen this picture, but only fools understood it this way: “If I go to the gym and my weight stays the same, this means that I am losing fat, and instead I am building muscle, the weight of which is equal to the weight of the lost fat.” .

Such a situation is impossible in principle.

Losing fat is always much easier and faster than gaining muscle mass. Muscles grow very slowly.

Fat also - especially at a certain stage - goes away slowly. And, nevertheless, fat loss and muscle gain are incomparable things in terms of speed. Muscle growth in both women and men always occurs slower than fat loss. In women it is twice as slow as in men.

A woman who is not new to the gym and who trains there conscientiously can gain about 50 grams of muscle mass per week. And this is an excellent indicator.

A healthy person, if he sets a goal to lose weight and does everything right, can easily lose from 500 grams to 1 kg of fat per week.

So if the needle on your scale stays the same for a long period of time (weeks 3-4), this does not mean that by training you are replacing fat tissue with muscle tissue, but that you are unable to lose weight. fat.

Chickens, forget the statement that muscles are heavier than fat, and never try it on yourself. Don't embarrass yourself.

You have no idea how ridiculous it sounds coming out of your mouth, considering that fat loss happens in one way and only one way: when you burn more calories than you consume. With a calorie deficit, there can be no talk of any increase in muscle mass.

Exceptions:

1) Those who have just started to lose weight. This is a matter of the first two weeks, not four or more.

2) Those who use steroids.

If you're working out and the weight isn't coming off, you're probably just eating too much. Even if you exercise a lot, you eat even more. That's why your weight doesn't move.

Do you want a beautiful body? Be smart. Use your head, and don’t replicate misinterpreted truths by flapping your wings.

It often happens that a well-fed person weighs one hundred kilograms, and a bodybuilder - fit and pumped up - also weighs one hundred kilograms. At the same time, the first man does not look very aesthetically pleasing with a hanging belly, but the second one looks beautiful. These people have the same weight, but different shapes. The mystery lies in the fact that fat and muscle do not weigh the same.

What a beginner needs to know before starting to lose weight

Before you start losing weight, a beginner should know that it is impossible to transfer fat into muscle. This means that if a person is overweight, then when he starts working out in the gym, he will not achieve the effect of muscle accumulation and fat breakdown.

In other words, in order to remove fat tissue, you need to use some processes, and in order to build muscle, others.

If the goal is to lose weight and get pumped up, you won’t be able to do it at the same time. It is impossible to drive one cell into another, as some people think. First you need to lose weight by losing excess weight, and only then build muscle.

Wraps, massages, rubbing will not help you lose fat mass. Fat from the triglycerides in which it is found in the body will be broken down into fatty acid and glycerin will enter the bloodstream. But if you don't use it, for example, don't give it physical activity or do not reduce calorie intake, these cells will return to their original place, accumulating on the sides. They can also deposit plaques on blood vessels in the form of cholesterol.

Eating right is very important

You can only get rid of excess fat if you eat right. This is exactly what a beginner who has decided to say goodbye to extra pounds should know. To do this, you can play sports, run, jump, swim, that is, do cardio exercises, but only slowly and for more than an hour at a time. You should train every other day. This will be enough, but if problems with obesity are serious, then it is better to exercise every day.

Having lost the hated kilograms, you can move on to gaining muscle mass. Then, perhaps, the kilograms will return, but the person’s body will look many times more beautiful. It will become slim and fit

To lose fat and gain muscle, you need to eat differently. In the first case, the amount of carbohydrates should be reduced to a minimum or completely abandoned for some time. In the second case, you should eat a limited amount of carbohydrates in the first half of the day, and increase your protein intake in the second half of the day. The general thing is that you need to eat little by little and in fractions.

Important! Only by knowing what 1 kg of fat and 1 kg of muscle looks like can you build up the former and fight the latter.

Human Fat Density and Muscle Density

Muscle has a higher density than fat. It turns out that greater density occupies a smaller volume of the same weight than less density, and a person who has a lot of muscle tissue looks slimmer and prettier. And this despite the fact that they will have the same weight.

Important! It is wrong to think that a woman weighing 60 kilograms, living without exercise and being overweight, will look fatter than a pumped one.

It has been proven that fat density is 0.9 and muscle density is 1.06 grams per cubic centimeter. It turns out that the difference between them is small. It is only 15 percent and it is difficult to visually notice the difference. That is, both girls weighing 60 kilograms - one fat, the other pumped - will look approximately the same. The only difference is that one of them has visible muscle relief.

Important! It is easier for a person who has a lot of muscles to lose weight.

It is possible to understand the truth that fat density and muscle density have little difference through experiment. You need to take meat and lard, which look the same in volume, and if you weigh them, it turns out that the meat weighs 99 grams, and the lard is only 98.

It is easier for a person who has a lot of muscles to lose weight

The following conclusions suggest themselves:

• It is not true that fat takes up ten times more space than muscle.
• Muscles grow unevenly during training. Mostly where they are being worked on. Adipose tissue is distributed evenly in particularly vulnerable areas. In men in the abdominal area, in women on the buttocks, thighs, and abdomen.

What is heavier: fat or muscle mass: compare a kilogram of fat and a kilogram of muscle

It is wrong to think that kg of fat and kg of muscle are very different in volume. In fact, the figures are approximately the same. As proof, they cite a comparison of lard with meat - a kilogram of the former looks much larger than the same kilogram of the latter. In fact, their density is slightly different, so meat weighs about one and a half times more than lard.

Important! If a person starts working out, and the scale needle suddenly suddenly stops, this does not mean that he has stopped losing weight, his muscles are just growing.

So, which is heavier, fat or muscle? Of course, muscles! During training, they grow, but the weight remains, although body volume decreases. If you don’t play sports, your figure will deteriorate with age, because in youth there is always more muscle tissue than fat. In adulthood, getting rid of excess fat is a difficult question, because fat cells do not degenerate into muscle cells.

Heavier muscles

Advice from experienced trainers and nutritionists on building muscle mass and removing excess fat from the body

In order to gain muscle mass, you need not only to go on a diet, but also to exercise. Body change occurs only through regular training and accurate calorie counting.

Experienced trainers give advice on how to gain muscle mass:

• To begin with, you should pay attention to how muscles grow. Every day, protein is synthesized and broken down in them. If the process is balanced, muscle mass is not lost, except in cases of aging. For muscle growth to occur, synthesis must predominate over breakdown.
• Maintaining and increasing muscle requires a good metabolism, which requires energy. The process of muscle training itself is important. When strength exercises are performed static exercises, muscle cells are torn, so immediate protein synthesis is required to repair them. Moreover, the body tries to create more muscles and make them stronger and more resilient so that they do not tear.

Important! The load should increase and become more intense, which will speed up the metabolism.

It is difficult to build a beautiful body with just training. You need proper nutrition, in which protein predominates, as well as a sufficient amount of calories to provide energy for metabolism.

• No need to diet.
• You need to eat carbohydrates and other foods.
• You should not eat strictly specified portions.
• There is no need to manipulate hormones.

The only way to get rid of extra pounds is by consuming fewer carbohydrates, but maintaining the amount of protein so as not to lose muscle.

If you are actively training, but you are unable to burn fat and the numbers on the scale remain motionless, as if all this time you have been serenely lying on the couch, do not be discouraged and read this material - we will tell you why this happens.

Any load, be it cardio or power training, can help you gain muscle mass and lose excess fat, so just because the scale is frozen doesn't mean all your efforts are in vain. The thing is that muscles are more dense than fat. Thus, one kilogram of muscle is significantly less in volume than one kilogram of fat, but they have the same mass.

What is heavier - muscle or fat?

Have you ever heard the statement that a kilogram of muscle weighs more than one kilogram of fat? It should be noted right away that in in this case we are talking about comparing the mass of two bodies, and not about weight, as is commonly believed. Thus, the mass of the two bodies is identical, and it’s all a matter of volume, since one kilogram of fat takes up four times more space than muscle tissue. That is, you can look and feel thin even if your body weight remains the same. Alas, the same thing “works” in reverse side- you can look and feel plump, despite the fact that the scale arrow will remain motionless. This is especially typical for older people, since muscles tend to decrease in size with age, because the process of restoring damaged muscle cells is much slower than in youth. In addition, with age, a person, as a rule, begins to move less, and this, in turn, significantly affects the increase in fatty tissue in the body.

In any case, excess fat can be a factor contributing to the development of serious diseases such as stroke, coronary artery disease and diabetes. It is difficult to determine the optimal ratio of fat and muscle in the body for each person - for this it is necessary to conduct special research, since the final indicator will depend on the person’s lifestyle, and on the characteristics of his body, and on the sport in which he plays. However, insufficient body fat is also undesirable, since a lack of fat can cause serious damage to the body, including reproductive function in women. It should be remembered that the ability to lead an active lifestyle largely depends on understanding the fact: the body needs both muscle and fat.

Igor Zavyalov

Do not forget that body weight consists not only of muscle and fat tissue - there are also bones, internal organs, fluid, glandular and nervous tissue. Therefore, I am against frequent weighing when it comes to determining the effectiveness of training and balanced nutrition. Instead, use a measuring tape and your feelings - whether the clothes are becoming looser or, on the contrary, narrower. Yes, you can weigh the same at 50 years old as at 25, but only in youth did muscles prevail in these conditional 65 kilograms, and now fat prevailed, although the mass remained unchanged. And don't believe the claims that if you don't exercise, your muscles will turn into fat. No, muscles don't turn into fat, fat doesn't turn into muscle, bones don't turn into brain. Is it possible wooden house become stone? The same thing here - different materials, which cannot turn into each other in any way. If a person stops taking care of himself, fat mass naturally begins to prevail. Plus, with age, the body somehow gains fat mass and loses muscle mass - after 30 years, there are fewer muscle cells, metabolism slows down, and a person uses less energy. This is a natural mechanism, but not a death sentence. If you want to continue to be active, keep leading healthy image life and exercise, and the older you get, the more time you should devote to maintaining your own physical shape. You just need to do this consciously and under the guidance of a professional who can competently plan the load, taking into account your age.

Modern scales allow you to measure body composition and determine the percentage of muscle and fat mass. If you are not preparing for professional competitions, such scales will be quite enough to track not only muscle growth and fat burning, but also monitor fluid loss. This is important to consider to prevent dehydration. For example, many people wear special rubber suits for training, run for hours in them and then proudly say that they have lost three kilograms. Only they lost not fat, but water. Professional athletes even have this rule - they weigh themselves before the match and always after. This allows them to determine exactly how much fluid the body has lost. In order to restore water balance, they must drink water within two hours at the rate of 150% of lost body weight - they have “lost weight” by two kilograms, which means they need to drink three liters of water. If this is not done, the recovery process will take a long time and be less effective.

The average person can safely lose 500 grams of fat per week, or no more than two kilograms per month. Yes, you can lose weight faster, but it will no longer be safe, and you may experience a “reverse wave”, which is inevitable with sudden weight loss. Remember, the body will always take its toll. The main thing in this matter is to know your characteristics and tendencies and not go to extremes.

Yes, the numbers on the scale may remain stationary for a long time, but the ratio of muscle mass to fat mass will still change. So don’t give up swimming or daily workouts in the gym just because the scale arrow isn’t moving in the direction you want. Stop weighing yourself for a while and try to measure your results in other units, such as centimeters or the minutes you spend doing the plank.

When we talk about heavy weight, we increasingly condemn the presence of extra pounds and fat reserves. Yes, size largely depends on the percentage of fat in the body, but still, there are no exact indicators of normal weight, since muscles also influence size and weight. They also have weight.

Typically, when determining excess weight, experts take into account not actual weight, but the percentage of fat in a person’s body. The higher this percentage, the greater the risk of health complications.. This percentage can only be determined using a special device or well-designed scales, which are usually found in nutritionists’ offices. You can also find such scales in fitness clubs. They show the percentage of fat, muscle and water that are contained in the body and all three indicators in general will be 100%. Since the percentage of water in the human body usually does not change (at least it should), changes in the percentage of muscle and fat may occur. Is it worth reminding that the greater the preponderance towards muscles, the better for human health.

What's heavier?

It is noted that the specific gravity of muscle tissue is three times greater than that of adipose tissue. The ideal percentage of fat and muscle mass for women and men. Values vary depending on age.

So, for women under the age of 20 years, the normal level of fat is considered to be 14-21%, but from 20 to 50 years old, women are allowed to have a fat mass of 17 to 27%. After thirty, a percentage of 20-3o is considered the norm.

As for men, the standards for them are somewhat lower. At the age of up to 20 years, fat mass can have a value of 9-15%, and at the age of 20 to 50 years, 14-21% is considered the norm. After 50 years, as for women, the standards increase, and the fat value can reach 19-23%.

By the way, if the percentage of fat is higher, this, of course, indicates obesity, but lower values ​​are not always good for human health. Fat is essential for humans because it helps protect internal organs. And in cold weather, fat still performs a heating function.

So it’s better for women not to go too far in getting rid of fat, in order to prevent the figure from being less than 12%. At lower values, a variety of problems are noted, including frequent shutdowns. menstrual cycle. Men need at least 5% for normal well-being and health.

How to turn fat into muscle?

Fat cannot be converted into muscle, since in order to reduce its amount, fat deposits must be burned. Muscle mass, on the contrary, increases. So the two processes are completely incompatible. But if you train, do strength exercises, then the fat gradually disappears, and at the same time muscle mass increases. This occurs due to the fact that physical strength increases, energy increases, muscle configuration noticeably improves and metabolism increases. An excellent result of active training is an improvement in figure and weight, a reduction in the appearance of cellulite and a reduction in the risk of diseases associated with obesity or overweight.

But a high percentage of fat is very harmful to the human body. It can lead to a reduction in energy flow and a slowdown of metabolism, the body becomes noticeably more lethargic and the risk of developing diabetes and some other unpleasant diseases increases.

But, in any case, using body fat percentage to determine a person's size is unwise. There are women with a low percentage of fat, but with naturally wide hips and an insufficiently defined waist. Of course, the clothing size in this case cannot be too small, even if the weight seems small. Or, with a fat percentage higher than normal, people look quite good - they cannot boast of a model appearance, but it is also difficult to classify them as obese. So body fat percentage may be an indicator, but it's not the only guide.

Many athletes and people far from this are wondering what is heavier: muscles or fat. There is a sufficient amount of controversial information on this matter.

Fat or weightlifter?

You can often find a common example in the comparison of fat and muscle: a well-fed person can weigh 100 kg and not look very beautiful, and a bodybuilder who also weighs 100 kg, but has a low percentage of fat, nevertheless looks quite aesthetically pleasing. Same weight, but different shape. In the first case, the person will seem much larger in size than the second, but meanwhile they have the same weight, so what is the mystery?

Having understood the question “Which is heavier: muscles or fat in a person,” everyone can clearly understand what actions they need to take depending on their goal of building a figure. After all, only having certain knowledge in a certain matter can you competently approach solving a problem.

Fat or muscle - which is heavier?

Having understood this topic, you can clearly understand why such dramatic differences in weight and appearance arise. If we consider the question "is muscle or fat heavier?" from the point of view of cellular structure, the clear answer is that muscles are heavier, since their cells have a higher density compared to fat cells.

Muscle cells contain protein and water, while fat cells contain only fat, or lipids. You don’t need to have any special knowledge of body structure to understand that protein and water, aka muscles, will be much denser in composition than fat.

Functions of fat deposits

Fat is not a useless phenomenon; its critical level poses a threat to health, so you need to take a responsible approach to the process of losing weight. Layers of fat protect internal organs and create an additional source of heat in cold weather, which explains the decrease in metabolism in winter as the body tries to conserve fat reserves.

Having learned the answer to the question “fat or muscle - which is heavier,” many try in every way to get rid of fat, which exceeds muscle tissue in volume, but it is worth understanding that there is a limit beyond which it is not advisable to go.

The lowest fat level threshold for a woman is 12%, then problems may begin with both appearance, and in a feminine way. Men can feel great with 5% body fat.

However, a high percentage of fat is harmful to the body, since the likelihood of developing diabetes increases, energy decreases, metabolism slows down, and lethargy sets in.

Why doesn't the weight change?

Due to the difference in the weight of muscle and fat, when losing weight, your weight may stay the same. In the process of sports activity, both fat is burned and muscle mass is built. Due to the fact that the proportion of body fat may be lower than the proportion of muscle, the effect of stagnant weight change can be created. In other words, two processes occurred simultaneously - fat went away and muscles increased.

Based on this, one should not attach great importance numbers on the scales. Visually you can see changes, a decrease in volume in certain areas, but remain at the same weight.

Many people believe that if they work out in the gym, their figure will in any case become athletic, whether they initially have fat or muscles. What is harder - burning lipids or increasing lean mass?

You need to understand that fat does not transfer to muscle. Intense exercise, of course, reduces body fat in some sense, however good result can only be achieved by limiting carbohydrates.

Heavy bones?

An overweight person has a large proportion of body fat, while the proportion of muscle and bone tissue changes slightly. It is inappropriate to believe that weight can increase due to bone growth, since a change of even 10% bone tissue leads to an increase in body weight by only 1-1.5 kg.

You can achieve dramatic weight gain with physical activity and proper nutrition, since muscles are heavier than fat and bones. Because of this, the athlete will have great muscle mass and weight accordingly. Although, according to the classification of acceptable parameters and weight, he will belong to the overweight group, while having a low percentage of fat reserves.

Today there is a so-called bioimpedance analysis, which allows you to calculate the percentage of muscle and fat tissue in the body. Based on this, we can conclude whether a person needs to lose weight or gain weight.

When wondering whether fat or muscle is heavier, you need to consider many factors that influence weight gain.

In some cases, for example, in premenstrual syndrome in women or with heart disease, weight may increase due to fluid retention in the body. In this case, you need to consult a doctor. But still, almost everyone is overweight due to excess fat.

When understanding the question “Which is heavier: muscle or fat?”, it is important to pay attention not only to weight, but also to the distribution of fat across parts of the body. Thus, a woman, even if she is overweight, can look harmoniously built, which is due to the uniform distribution of fat deposits throughout the body.

The ratio of hips to waist volumes, taken as the norm, for women is 0.7, for men - 1.

Body types

There are two types of figure: for the female type - “pear” and for the male - “apple”.

People belonging to the first type have a concentration of fat in the buttocks and lower abdomen.

Those in the second type have deposits, usually in the upper part of the body. These people are susceptible to obesity, diabetes, ischemia, and atherosclerosis.

You need to be aware that weight does not play a big role; what this weight consists of is much more important. The same weight of fat and muscle will look different. How? - many will ask. For example, 1 kg of muscle occupies a volume 2 times less than 1 kg of fat.

To replace fat with muscle, you need to eat protein and give up harmful products, then you will no longer worry about the question of what is heavier - muscles or fat in a person.