Muscle "Turned Into" Fat?

It's a fairly common misconception in the fitness world - if you stop working out, building and exercising your muscles, they’ll turn straight to soft, mushy fat.

Spoiler alert! This is not a thing. Meaning that it doesn’t (because it can’t) happen that way.

It’s totally understandable that lots of folks assume this is occurring, because at a very basic level it seems to make sense… You stop exercising, you look and feel fatter, and your muscles become softer and lack definition - all while your weight stays just about the same.

I get why the conclusion is drawn that the muscle turned to fat, sure. On the outside, it seems like a one-for-one swap has occurred. BUT let’s talk about why that’s not how it goes.

First of all, muscle and fat are two very different types of tissues with completely different functions.

Muscle is made up mostly of protein (amino acids), and fat (adipose tissue) is made up of special fat storage cells called adipocytes. Skeletal muscle’s job is to allow your body to move, and fat is responsible for a ton of things like fuel, cushioning, and insulation.

One tissue cannot transform and become the other.

Muscle can’t "turn into" fat, and fat can’t "turn into" muscle. Different cell types, different tissues.

What CAN happen though, is that the amounts of each one of these tissues a person has at any given time can change. The ratios can shift based upon diet and activity, and that can cause a person’s body to look and feel very different, even at the same weight. This, in itself, is body composition.

Now, if a person notices that once they’ve stopped working out that their muscles feel smaller and they feel fatter, they’re probably right. However, what has happened is that due to lack of exercise they have lost skeletal muscle and during the same timeframe gained some fat - if their weight hasn’t changed, they’ve just gained the exact amount of fat it has taken to offset their muscle loss.

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So the assumption that there’s now less muscle and more fat present on their body is probably right on the money, it’s just that those two tissues have independently decreased and increased, respectively. Nothing turned into anything else to create this scenario.

The thing is, exercise and proper diet affect your body inversely (duh) - if you’re not actively maintaining your muscle and keeping fat at bay, your body will lose muscle and gain fat. That’s fitness for you in a nutshell.

Anyway, I just wanted to give a little insight into why this frequently mentioned way of thinking is actually misleading…

Your body isn’t performing some kind of tissue alchemy right before your very eyes - you’re just gaining and losing two types of body tissues in response to your diet and exercise choices.

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Last thing, a little fun fact: one pound of muscle takes up far less space than one pound of fat - so even if you gain muscle through your workouts, you will still look tight, lean, and slender if you decrease the amount of body fat that surrounds and covers your hard-won gains. Hear that ladies? ;)

I hope this was helpful in shedding some light on this silly phrase! :)

Are you curious about any other fitness rumors/myths/dogmas? Let me know!

Please feel free to comment, upvote, or resteem if you’d like!