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Original poster

Can we talk about muscle weighing more than fat?

35 replies

strartingtotry · 25/09/2017 14:01

So I've been doing pole dancing which is strength training for a few months now and I've noticed I've put a few pounds on. My waist and hip measurements etc are still the same so I'm not any bigger. My arms are definitely more muscly! Do you think it's because as some people say muscle weighs more than fat?

OP posts:
confusedandemployed · 27/09/2017 08:23

Ffs of course muscle weighs more than fat, in the same way lead weighs mire than feathers. Google a pound of fat v a pound of muscle, there are visual representations.

But I'd be dubious about your wondering if your extra weight is due to muscle gain. Is it TOTM? Or you could just be retaining water.

brownfang · 27/09/2017 08:17

Can you link to the calculator?

Excuse my cynicism... I found some pictures of pairs of people with exact same BMI. The headline was "Wow don't these people all look completely different! Isn't BMI variable!"

They didn't look different. Confused Each pair looked remarkably similar in terms of visible fat distribution.

I also found some pics of individuals before & after many weeks exercise regime pics where people had same BMI both times. They did look better (more toned) in the After, but they still didn't look at all different in terms of total size, & barely different in terms of visible body fat. Maybe I'm blind?

Original poster
strartingtotry · 26/09/2017 21:26

I found a calculator online which asked me to take certain measurements and weight etc and it calculated it.

I also have scales that say they tell you body fat percentage but I think that was lower like 20 % which I doubt is correct

OP posts:
Allthelightsgoout · 26/09/2017 19:22

No it doesn't weigh more. A pound of fat weighs the same as a pound of muscle. It's the density which is the difference - so a pound of muscle takes up less space by volume than fat. So that's why you see heavily muscular people but trim people weighing more than people that seem objectively overweight/fat.

15 stone in a person with high muscle mass looks very, very different to 15 stone in a person with high fat mass. It's why very muscular people often have a BMI in the obese scale even though they're clearly not at all overweight objectively.

YouCantArgueWithStupid · 26/09/2017 19:13

Sorry muscle has less mass than fat

YouCantArgueWithStupid · 26/09/2017 19:13

Fat has less mass than muscle. A kg of feathers weighs the same as a kg of stones. They have a different mass

AfunaMbatata · 26/09/2017 19:06

What camel asked, how do you measure body fat online?

Cameblackbenzleftwhite1 · 26/09/2017 19:05

How on earth can you check your body fat percentage online? The scales at home aren't really very accurate

Original poster
strartingtotry · 26/09/2017 19:03

Thank you for the link! I've just checked out my body fat percentage online and it's 26% which I'm happy with as I once checked and it was 33% so it's improved Grin

OP posts:
brownfang · 25/09/2017 20:12

The difference is less than 10%, though. Gosh, the way folk go on you'd think the difference was MASSIVE.

You could get one of those body fat% calculating electronic scales and see if there are any changes over time.

That link is also good at explaining why muscles only metabolise very slightly more energy than fat, being more muscly does not burn many more calories. I once worked out that for a woman who went from very little muscle to lots of muscle, the calorie difference per day would be like 60-80 kcal. Or a single tangerine.

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