Fat weight V muscle Weight??

[Nickynoodle71]

Hi guys
Can anyone help me with a question about exercise and muscle weight.
Does anyone how much difference in weight you can expect when you exercise, I know muscle weighs more than fat, so does this mean the scales may not go down for while while the body adjust? What's your experience with exercise and weight loss?

Thanks Guys
:)

[Sherrie]

In the beginning they may due to beginner gains but after that its virtually impossible to gain muscle in a calorie deficit. I wouldn't avoid exercise because it may effect your weight, as remember it is the measurements that matter. Muscle is more dense so it will be less volume then the same weight in fat. Not only that, by increasing your muscle mass you increase your metabolism requiring your body to burn more calories at rest and you will increase your bone mass.

[kat1971]

Muscle and fat weigh exactly the same, muscle just takes up less room (volume) than fat does. Like Sherrie posted increasing your muscle mass increases your metabolism so your body becomes more efficent at burning calories (you don't have to work as hard to loose weigh). To build up bone mass you need to do weight bearing exercises like walking, jogging, weights..things like swimming and yoga don't count.

We need to keep in mind with weight loss and exercise that our bodies are just doing what they've been designed to do from an evolutionary perspective and that is to keep us alive by adapting to either a 'feast' or 'famine'. When we decrease our caloric intake our body doesn't realise that it's on a diet it thinks that were going through a famine so it tries to hold onto it's excess fat stores (until the next meal) in order to survive. Our body requires a certain amount of calories each day just to keep us alive and which is refered to as our basal metabolic rate (BMR), this includes the energy we use for breathing, sleeping, digestion etc..this doesn't include exercise.

When you throw exercise into the mix, esp in the beginning of a weightloss program and your daily caloric intake is less than the body requires for it's BMR then your body is going to try even harder to maintain it's fat stores, remember it thinks its starving and it's goal is survival so it's going to hold onto them for as long as possible. For this reason initial weight loss is always fluid, followed by excess body fat.

A good rule of thumb for weight loss is 'Energy in (food) needs to be less than Energy out (exercise)'. You can definitely speed up weight loss with exercise but just make sure if you do and your still not loosing to ask yourself if your actually eating enough to maintain your BMR as well as providing your body with enough fuel for the amount and type of exercise that your body is doing.