Losing Fat and Gaining Muscles: What Should You Know?

During weight reduction, fat is removed from fat cells and used to make energy in the body, along with other byproducts. Strength training and a protein-rich diet are ideal ways to preserve muscle.

Fremont, CA: Many people want to lose fat and gain muscle. One of the most common fitness fallacies is that weight training and a healthy lifestyle can transform fat into muscle. However, losing fat and growing muscle is more complex.

Muscle and fat comprise distinct cells, making it medically impossible to convert fat into muscle. A decent analogy would be that you can't change a banana into an apple; they're two different things.

Muscles can be skeletal, cardiac (heart), or smooth. Skeletal muscle is the most commonly associated with body composition, as it is related to bones via tendons and facilitates voluntary movement.

Myofibrils are bundles of muscle fibers that make up skeletal muscle tissue. Myofibrils contain smaller fibers of long chains of amino acids that serve as protein building blocks. Amino acids have a distinctive nitrogen group in their chemical structure.

Body fat, or adipose tissue, includes triglycerides with three fatty acid chains and a glycerol backbone. Though there are many forms of bodily fat, fat is only made up of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms.

Muscle and fat cells have distinct chemical compositions; therefore, neither can be transformed into the other.

Weight reduction usually combines decreasing fat, muscle, and glycogen storage (water weight). The majority of weight loss should be achieved through fat loss.  

To lose weight, you must create a calorie deficit by consuming fewer calories than your body requires daily, increasing physical activity to burn calories, or combining the two.

However, a severe calorie deficit can result in rapid muscle mass loss, as the body breaks down muscle as an emergency fuel source. As a result, a moderate deficit of about 500 calories, or 10-20% of your total calorie requirements each day, is recommended.

During a moderate calorie deficit, body fat is converted into fuel to support the body's normal functioning.

Triglycerides deposited in fat cells are broken down and transported to the mitochondria, where they form adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the body's primary energy source.

This process, known as beta-oxidation, creates byproducts such as carbon dioxide and water. These are both exhaled while breathing and eliminated through urine and sweat.

As a result, when fat is burned, it is broken down into helpful energy rather than becoming muscle.

Strength training should be done at least 2-3 times a week to maintain muscle mass while losing weight. Furthermore, a protein-rich diet has been demonstrated to slow muscle loss under a calorie shortage.