When I was trying to lose all of the weight, I weighed myself just about every day. It was exciting to see the numbers get lower and lower. That was evidence that what I was doing was working. Up until I dropped to a size three, my weight was going down. Then I noticed that the opposite started happening. Size two. Weight went up. Size one. Numbers on the scale increased again. Size zero. Higher still! What was the deal?
It turns out that what was occurring was completely normal. While it is true that a pound of muscle weighs the same as a pound of fat, there is a reason that you can drop sizes and increase in weight: muscle is more dense than fat. That is, the volume of muscle is less than the volume of fat. So a pound of muscle in your body will take up less space than a pound of fat.
That is why you can start packing on the pounds (in terms of muscle) and still start looking lean and toned. And it turns out that while you are resting, a pound of muscle will burn 50 times more calories than a pound of fat will. And that is the reason that I promote building muscle! Dr. Mehmet Oz gave an excellent presentation regarding effective weight loss techniques and the importance of building muscle mass.
At a size zero, I weighed 109 lbs. I was pretty toned! Now, three kids later, I am working to get back to that (it’s harder these days, but still possible). I weighed myself yesterday, and at a size three, came in at 101 lbs. And that is not 101 lbs of fitness, either. I did not exercise at all while I was pregnant with my daughter – I was very sick the entire time I was pregnant. Exercise would have compounded the problem.
While I have started exercising again, the goal is to build muscle tone, and in that sense, I should see my weight climb back up. Since numbers can be misleading, I do not rely on them to tell me how fit I am. It is rather a combination of things: what size I am, how toned I am, how healthy I’m eating, etc. This is not to say that I don’t turn to a scale for a look at how I’m doing; it is just not the only determining factor I consider.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Strength training is a very important part of any exercise program and lifting weights will help you to burn calories (and continue burning calories hours after the workout). However, I have to disagree with the statement that “a pound of muscle will burn 50 times more calories than a pound of fat will.” Dr. Cedric X. Bryant – the Chief Science Officer of the American Council of Exercise – has stated that 3 to 5 lbs of added muscle will only burn about 15 – 30 extra calories a day. That means that on average a pound of muscle will burn around 6 calories a day. You can read some about it here: http://exercise.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=exercise&cdn=health&tm=170&f=10&tt=12&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.acefitness.org/fitnessqanda/fitnessqanda_display.aspx%3FCMP%3DEMC-HET_0309%26itemid%3D358
@ Phillip, Thanks for your input. ;0) I did check out the article that you gave, and that is indeed interesting. That article makes some good points, but it seems to me that it suggests that the overall effect of muscle mass (as it relays to its ability to burn calories) is much smaller than it is. I have found that muscle mass (at least for me) plays a great role in my body’s ability to burn calories.
As for the statement that you disagree with, that came from what I gathered from a video by Dr. Mehmet Oz. In the video @1:26, Dr. Oz states, “Muscle burns about 50 times more calories than fat does.” So while he does not specifically refer to a pound of muscle per se, that is the generalization I made. Either way, I am sure that there is disagreement in the fitness world regarding how much muscle mass can contribute to calorie burning. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!