After Being Big = Being Fat?

My friends always tell that that if I gain muscle then I stop training it will all become fat?

Would extra muscle if it detoriates, lower metabolism?

Let’s supposed you trained and ate right for a couple years and gained a lot of muscle. Then you stopped training and ate like shit for a while. The muscle would disappear and you would turn fat.

Of course, if you skip the first couple years and don’t lift and eat like shit from the beginning you’ll end up weak and fat . . . sooner.

Don’t blame the muscle. It goes away because you stopped training and supporting it with food. The fat arrives because of the crap you eat.

Here’s a novel idea: Exercise and eat properly for the rest of your life.

Muscle cannot turn into fat, though as you lose it, your metabolism might slow done, making you more prone to weight gain.

Tell your friends to take it easy with whatever they’re smoking.


Why would you stop training???

Holo,

As the others have said: a muscle cell cannot turn into a fat cell. If you stop working out, you can lose your shape, get soft. But the muscle will be there, begging you to start exercising again (because you can get your shape back more quickly if you used to have it to start with).

And let me repeat some good advice already given: don’t stop training. You aren’t good at anything unless you work at it; you can’t expect to keep a physique–ideally, you’d want to keep improving!–if you aren’t willing to put in the time.

Without knowing anything about you and your situation and friends, I would be willing to guess that they are saying this for two reasons:

  1. They are ignorant enough of biology to believe it.
  2. They don’t want to see you improve yourself, because it underscores how they are out of shape.

Go to the link below, and scroll down to the 02/04/05 entry in the blog. You’ll understand your friends a little more.
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do;jsessionid=79F60C98C3F142DE7EC163FACA50E7F0.titan?id=543421

Health is routine. Start now.