Turn Fat Into Muscle
The Truth about How to Turn Fat into Muscle
You hear the phrase “turn fat into muscle,” all of the time. But the truth is, this is perhaps the biggest myth of bodybuilding, because it is not possible to turn fat into muscle. Fat is fat and muscle is muscle and neither one can be transformed into the other. Both are entirely different types of body tissue. What can happen is that you can build muscle and lose fat or vice-versa.
Everyone has a different potential to build muscle that is ultimately based on genetics. Some people can work out and can quickly build muscle, while others can work out for years and hardly grow any muscle at all. But if you train correctly and follow a good nutrition plan, anyone can make some progress at growing muscle mass. All you have to do is to learn some basic information about how muscle grows.
Weight training is the best way to build muscle. You need to develop a bodybuilding regimen which targets all of the major muscle groups at least once a week. What you need are short, intense workouts. You build muscle by lifting to muscle failure. Muscle failure is the point at which you cannot do one more repetition, no matter what.
It is by taking your muscles to the extreme that you grow muscle. That and eating a lot of protein. Protein is indeed the building block of muscle. Your body’s ultimate goal is to preserve life. It is designed to do anything it can to keep you alive. When you work out hard lifting to muscle failure, you are taking your body beyond the point where it is comfortable.
You are also causing micro-tears in your muscle fiber which will repair themselves during your periods of rest and recovery. You body wants not only to return the muscle to the state it was in before it was damaged, but grow even more muscle to make this muscle stronger than it was before. When you continually break muscle down in your workouts, your body will keep repairing and healing the muscle tissue, making it stronger so that the muscle breakdown which occurred cannot happen again.
While you can’t turn fat into muscle, you can grow muscle by lifting weights and you can lose fat by doing a cardiovascular workout, such as walking on a treadmill, bicycling or swimming. Another truth about fat is that you cannot choose the location on your body where you want the fat removed. This is also based on genetics. Your body will burn fat wherever it wants.
Along with weight training and cardio workouts, what you eat is critical to the amount of muscle you grow and the fat that you lose as well. You can’t have the attitude that because you are working out so hard, you can go home at night and eat anything you want to eat. You must set up a proper nutrition plan focused on building muscle.
One of the first things you have to do is make a move from eating three large meals a day to 5-7 smaller meals. That way your body will not need to use your hard-earned muscle as fuel. You want to stay out of a catabolic state, where you are losing muscle and stay in an anabolic state where you will gain muscle.
Another part of this nutrition plan is to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables and to consume plenty of vitamins, minerals, fiber and antioxidants. Eat high quality protein in great quantity. The best protein is whey protein isolate and you need to work a few protein shakes into your daily meal plan. Lean meat and eggs are also valuable sources of protein. Stay away from junk foods that are highly processed.
You cannot turn fat into muscle but if you can grow muscle and lose fat, you may start to look like you did.