1 pound of muscle = 1 pound of fat

You have probably hit that thing that everyone hates - the plateau!

All you need to try to do is vary your workout just a bit to give your body that extra little push. Nothing to drastic - maybe a set of jumping jacks between weight sets.

Try something like that for a couple of weeks and see if it helps.

I was under the understanding that muscle weighs more than fat. Is that not true??

Yes, muscle weighs more than fat.
You probably need to change your diet. You may need to lower your caloric intake to lose weight.
Or try atkins. Even if you just do the first 14 days of virtually no carbs, and then slowly up your carbs, it will kickstart your metabolism and you should lose weight.

Muscle is more dense than fat, it does not weight more.

Muscle is more dense than fat, it does not weight more.

Yes, it is more dense than fat, but it does weigh slightly more than fat. When I started working out for baseball, I gained nearly 10 pounds. I'm skinny to begin with (6'0, 130-140 lbs), and I managed to gain weight, while getting rid of what little fat I had.

Thank you fuba!

Maybe this has been answered already, but help me out if possible. Since september I have lost about 28 pounds by eating better and doing pilates. I had been losing about a pound or two a week. About 3 weeks ago I started weight training and aerobics and have gained a pound. What's happening? Thanks

Muscle weighs more than fat. Working out with bring about more weight since muscle can hold blood in it. Fat is also less dense than muscle. So you can have 1 pound of muscle, and have it take up less space than 1 pound of fat. Don't worry, gaining weight after you start out is normal. It happened to me too, and people ask if i'm anorexic (even though I am normal weight, I just have very very little fat on me)

Oh, and also, i've heard that more muscle means more energy used (ie body heat), making your metabolism faster. So, by burning fat to get muscle, you might gain weight, but you're also burning off what you eat even easier now. Just a little fact.

Muscle does not weight more than fat. 1lb of fat = 1lb of muscle. Yes fat is more dense than muscle but weight has nothing to do with that.

Also, in three weeks muscle fibers do not change. It takes 8 wks of heavy stenght training (8-12 rep max) for hypertrophy (muscle growth) to occur. Most likely your increase in weight is due to water retention which can happen when you start weight training. Good luck

Ok.... Muscle weighing more than fat means that if you were to take a big gallon bucket, and fill it with fat, and take that same gallon bucket, and fill it with muscle, the muscle would weigh more.

That has to do with density not weight, but yes you are right! It is just terminology, you use density to compare different substances to each other!
But in the body this happens much slower than most people think. Most initial weight gain occurs due to retention of water.

It takes most people about 1 yr to add 3-5lbs of muscle.

O.K, yeah, if you take one bucket of fat and one bucket of muscle, the muscle will weigh more. So density, or whatever the hell you want to call it, it weighs more!!!! Point being, when you are losing your fat and gaining muscle at the same time, you may gain weight because the muscle you are gaining weighs more than the same amount of fat that you are losing. And of course one pound of muscle = one pound of fat because they are both one pound. Just like one pound of feathers weighs the same as one pound of rocks, but that does not mean anything. When it comes to the density which is what matters, muscle is going to weigh more than fat!

Yes, you are right. Sorry to harp on semantics. But the main point is most people give this more muscle less fat causes me to gain weight too much attention.

The average person only gains about 5lbs of muscle in 1 yr from strength training. So you are not going to see much difference in your weight (from muscle mass) initially. Hopefully, you lose more than 5lbs of fat in 1 yr from exercising.

Oh I see what you are saying. And you are right. People should not give up weight training or pilates type excercises just because they may gain some weight in muscle form. I mean, even doing cardio all day is still going build muscle. But that is interesting. I didn't realize that people only gained about five pounds of muscle a year. Especially with how big you can get from lifting constantly.
The way I see it is I do not care if I weigh 500 pounds as long as I have a body like jennifer love hewitt!Lol.
But anway, some people stress too much on numbers instead of physical fitness, health and appearance.

Very good points!!

I am pretty active and I have been running and working out everyday for the past two months. I weigh myself all the time and it rarely goes down at all. I am 5'5 and 140 pounds but my waist is only about 24" . I've learned not to worry about weight, but instead measure your problem areas. Some times your thighs will increase in inches because of the toning, but I guarantee your tummy will trim down!