Fat vs. Muscle

By Paul Dexter, copyright

There are many reasons why we want to have more muscle than fat on our body….  

• Faster metabolism
• More energy
• Muscle controls insulin, thus preventing Diabetes
• More Muscle + Less Fat = More Fuel Efficient (utilize calories better)
• Decreases Stroke risk factors
• Prevents cardiovascular disease
• Lowers Blood Pressure
• Lowers Cholesterol
• Hormonal balance

There are many more, but as you can see the benefits are amazing. The problem that I see with many clients today, is that everyone is hung up with what the scale says. How much you weigh is not an accurate indicator of how healthy you are.

As you can see with the pictures above, and below, muscle takes up a lot less space than fat. I hear all the time….”I don’t want big muscles, if I lift weights am I going to get big muscles?!”. As you can see, that does not happen – especially for women. When I competed, I would get stronger towards my competition, and all my clothes would fall off of me. I was building muscle, increasing my metabolism while dieting, and even though I was building more muscle – I was losing massive inches because of the body fat I was dropping (more muscle + less fat = less space). If you lift weights and continue to eat bad, and gain fat…. then as you can see with the image above – you will get bigger, not because of the muscle, but because of the increased fat around that muscle.

I ask clients all the time, “would you rather weigh what you want and not look the way you want?…or would you rather look the way you want, and not care what your weight is?”. Body Composition should be everyone’s main concern. Your ratio of fat: muscle is a better indicator of your health. Any time that you look at a fitness athlete compared to a regular person, the fit person will look as though they weigh less, because they are smaller, but they actually weigh more because muscle is far more dense than fat, and takes up (as you can see) a lot less space.

The cornerstone of our Concepts, here at DTC is Strength Training. We want to increase your metabolism by increasing your lean mass, not only for when you are done dieting, but to get all the benefits that I mentioned above.

Consider us here at DTC, the Christopher Columbus of Strength Training. While everyone is telling you that the world is flat, and gaining muscle is bad. We are telling you to trust us, sail with us, the world is round, you want fall off the edge.
*food for thought…… 1 pound of fat burns 5 calories at rest, while 1 pound of muscle burns 50!