A pound of flesh

I see on the forums a lot of times people will say "Muscle weighs more than fat", which causes great confusion. A friend of mine posted on her status a pound is a pound right? Yes, this is true, like the old high school math problem of which weighs more, a ton of steel or a ton of feathers? They weigh the same. Here is where the confusion comes from. People are using the wrong units but they have the right idea.

Muscle is more DENSE than fat. But you have to place that in the context of a unit of volume. One cubic inch of muscle DOES weigh more than one cubic inch of fat. Because muscle is more dense, this is what causes the strange phenomenon of getting smaller inch wise, but staying the same weight or even gaining weight. If you lose a pound of fat and replace it with a pound of muscle, you will get smaller since volumetrically the pound of muscle is smaller, but if you add more than a pound of muscle to replace that pound of fat, you may maintain your weight or even gain weight, but will not increase your inches, unless you really really start to bulk up. Now, this noticeable of a difference will only be seen with someone small and near goal weight, but it applies to us all.

So just as a conclusion, when you measure yourself and your inches have gone down, but your weight stays the same, you've likely replaced some of your fat with muscle, and that pound of muscle is SMALLER because it's more dense then that pound of fat, but yes they weigh the same. You have to compare weight AND volume. (I have no idea the actual volume so this is completely made up, but think of it this way)... a pound of fat may be a cup in volume, while a pound of muscle may only be 3/4 of a cup in volume. They weigh the same, but the pound of muscle is SMALLER and more dense.

I hope this helps with the confusion! The adage that muscle weighs more than fat, is correct as long as you include the context of volume.