PSA: Muscle vs fat

I'm posting because I continually see this misinformation floating around. Muscle DOES NOT "weigh more" than fat! One pound = one pound = one pound.

One pound of muscle is, indeed, more compact than one pound of fat, but if you put a pound of each on the scale, they still both weigh ONE POUND!

That is all. Mini-rant over.

Um,  duh.  Of course a pound is a pound.  A pound of feathers weighs the same as a pound of lead.  But in terms of surface area,  muscle weighs more than fat.  I think people here are smart enough to know what it means.

Here's hoping.

Good point.  :-)

Don't be too sure of that. Definitely NOT the case on the main board.

Agreeing with NYB - it's not that people think a pound of something weighs more than a pound of something else. The whole point of the statement is to explain why you could be the same size but weigh more or less because muscle is more DENSE, so when given the same volume of each (say, a cubic inch), the muscle weighs more than the fat.

I totally agree with you. I think if people are bright enough to have found the DS, they are probably bright enough to realize that the size is different, not the weight. I've just seen it posted so many times, especially when a person has just started working out, that muscle weighs more, and so the person has obviously picked up muscle. I think we all also know that it takes a bit of time to actually gain muscle and lose fat, and it's probably not happening the first week or two of working out. More likely that we are retaining fluids to repairs those muscles we've used during working out.

It's all semantics, I know.

I've heard that saying when people start an exercise program. Sometimes people gain a little bit of weight when they start exercising and dieting.
It is supposed to reassure them.
But it sure does sound stupid, doesn't it?

*Like*

Omg, that drives me crazy when I hear that myth!