This was inspired by a friend of mine who was told by his friends he was wasting his time in the gym as when he stops training all the muscle he had would turn to fat... I had to laugh when he told me this however it's not the first time I've heard it.
A lot of people believe you can turn fat into muscle and muscle into fat.
Let me tell you now, this circulating 'gym talk' is in fact complete nonsense and is a total myth!
Fat and muscle are two completely different compounds and total opposites. Muscle is comprised of mainly water and amino acids (proteins) it's metabolically active (requires energy/calories to help maintain it) and is a 'living' tissue.
Fat on the other hand is comprised of toxins and is a storage site for lipids that can be released into energy. Fat can also be broken down into two substrates - white and brown adipose tissue. White adipose tissue is usually the fat which the majority of us don't like and want to lose... it's metabolically inactive and can raise questions to ones health if too high.
Another reason people still believe this to be true is through the reflection of bodybuilders. Bodybuilders dedicate great time and effort when it comes training and nutrition. They have incredible physiques and extremely low levels of body fat, often consuming 5,000 - 6,000 Kcals per day to help grow and maintain their muscular physique.
Problems become apparent when they become too old or decide to stop training; we often see bodybuilders looking fat and out of shape. This image gives people the impression their hard earned muscle has now turned to fat. The actual explanation of this is down to nutrition.
Many bodybuliders go through years of consuming enormous amounts of food per day, once they retire from training their muscles begin to atrophy from lack of stimulus and they find it hard to cut back on the calories and still eat what they were when once training... this then causes a problem!
The amount of calories going in each day soon adds up and so does the body fat!
So the next time you run into someone giving you the 'chit-chat' of turning muscle into fat, you can either direct them to this post or simply smile to yourself and walk away in confidence knowing the truth behind it all!
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