Recently one of my guy friend starts shedding his weight, quite successfully he lost a quantitative figure through the most common fat lost method; skipping meals. Then he told me that he is going to start some training, like push ups, to convert his remaining fats into muscle. Today we will not be discussing about the bad effects of skipping-meals-fat-lost program, rather, lets touch on the next topic: Converting fats into muscle.
This must be the biggest myth that people still believe up to today. Nowadays people are getting more and more health conscious, they started eating healthy and exercise. And the next thing they would want is toning up their physique. Good, of cos, who doesn't want to look better? :) And... i can hear people discussing on the grapevine their fabulous plan on how they are going to convert their current size (fats) into sexy looking muscles. Well look below:
Do you see any magazines or books that say: "convert fats into muscle"? At least not the direct conversion. Fat cannot turn into muscle. And muscle cannot turn into fat. period. Yes, check out the books, magazines or the internet, fats and muscles are totally different things altogether. They can never convert into the other, not with training or exercising.
Lets take a good example. If say you have a tummy right now, and if you would to try doing static exercises like 200 sit ups or crunches all day all night for a month, would you get 6 packs? Answer is obviously no. You may feel the tightness on your abdominal, but you can't see your 6 packs because they are covered with a layer of fat that pre-existed and still exists on your tummy. Those sit ups and crunches doesn't convert the tummy into 6 pack muscles after all. Many gym rats on the streets have big arms big chest, but next time, look closely at their tummy. Are their tummy as big as their arms? These are people who have bad diets, with high fats and some muscle to look huge. But to look like Mr Olympia, then you will have to lose those fats and build real muscles.
To make things simple, fats are fats; muscles are muscles. You don't eat a lot of fatty foods to train for muscle, neither should you fear that muscles will turn into fats when you stop training. And that's why all the magazines and books titled "Burn fats. Build muscle".
P.S: I consolidated all my fitness articles into the Gym and Fitness column for easy reference. |
