Fact or Myth: Fat turns to muscle

There are many people who believe the myth of fat turning into muscle and my friend was one of them. I was once asked by my friend if she were to do sit ups would she lose the fat on her stomach and get a six pack. I explained to her that everyone has a six pack it's just under the fat and doing sit ups will give her stronger abdominal muscles and once she has lost the fat she will see them more. To this she said "that's right because fat turns to muscle". Fat turns to muscle right? Wrong.

Fact: Fat does not turn into muscle; fat is simply a fuel source.

I do not know why people believe in this myth that fat turns into muscle but this can be simply because when a person starts training and their arms, chest or shoulders increase in size, perhaps they assume that the fat has turned into muscle in just 2 weeks of training. Another way they may look upon this is that their abdominals are now showing, thus meaning the fat has turned to muscle.

The reality of what is happening to the body is that the muscle has grown increasing the size of chest, arms, shoulders etc (thus pushing on the fat) giving the illusion of bigger muscular arms. Do not get me wrong there would be some fat loss but not to the degree that they may think.

Fat is a fuel source stored in the body along with glucose another fuel source. Both fat and glucose are used for energy sources therefore exercising at certain intensities will burn either more fat or glucose but both will be used in the process.

There are 7700 calories in 1 kilo gram of fat. This does not seem like a lot. With this in mind a 32 year old female client of mine would be on a treadmill jogging at a moderate pace around 6.0 kph for about 35 minutes and would burn 300 calories. So to burn 7700 calories or 1 kg fat she would need to jog for approximately 15 hours. A good healthy diet together with a maintained calorie intake will help prevent a person from becoming over weight. Prevention is the best cure.

It is a simple equation, its calories in against calories out. If a person consumes more calories in one day then they burn this will result in them gradually gaining weight.

So in order to lose the weight we need to ensure our activity levels are higher than our dietary needs.

Even when we are asleep we will burn in a 9 hour sleep anything from approximately 600-900 calories and that is just through sleeping.

Why you may ask, well think about it. Your heart is pumping while you sleep, your lungs expanding and de-expanding, your organs still working while you're asleep. All these are factors and for these to work they need energy.

Believe it or not but we all need a quantity of fat in our diets, it's just we are better off with good fats such as Omega 3 or mono-saturates which can be found in oily fish, nuts and seeds and bad fats being saturates and Trans fatty acid. Tran's fatty acid was created to help prolong shelf life and is used in pre packed foods and fast food chains. Unfortunately it shares the same characteristics as a saturate and thus makes it just as bad raising cholesterol.

Cardio such as swimming, jogging, cycling and even dancing is the best form of exercise to lose fat. Any exercise over 2 minutes that is repetitive and continuous is cardio and is a good way to lose fat. Also the more muscle a person has the more fat they will burn. This is because muscles need energy and the larger the muscles are the more energy they will need.