Saturday, March 27, 2021

Women and Weights : Muscle Turns to Fat?

Women and Weights : Muscle Turns to Fat?

Muscle Turns to Fat?

A misconception that I hear many women saying is that they don't want to workout because if they stop the muscle will turn to fat. Now, let's analyze this statement. People begin resistance training program in order to rid the body of fat, not to gain it. Muscle can't turn into fat any more than fat can turn to muscle. Muscle (metabolically active) and fat (metabolically inactive) are two completely different tissues responsible for their own functions. Just as your heart and liver are two different organs performing completely different functions, the same goes for muscle and fat. Now I ask you, can your heart turn into your liver, or vise versa? If there were any truth to the above statement there would be a lot of people out there with great muscle potential, if you catch my drift.



An explanation to the above myth is that some bodybuilders do gain extra weight off-season in preparation for the up coming competitive season. Many veterans of bodybuilding gain weight when they get older or retire, how does that differ from the average American? There is a biological reason for the weight gain. The metabolism slows down as we age, meaning the body needs fewer calories per day to maintain itself. The downfall is that most people, including bodybuilders, don't reduce their caloric intake to compensate for this slowdown and the end result is fat gain.

Another explanation is that bodybuilders, in hard training, develop enormous appetites and need the extra calories for muscle growth and repair. If the intake stays the same when training volume is reduced or ceased, the unburned calories get stored as fat; again, this is no different than the average American.


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