Females: Can You Turn Fat Into Lean Muscle?

You may be asking yourself, “What is the best diet and workout for turning my fat into muscle?” And if I accomplish that and stopped working out, will my muscle turn back into fat and how can you prevent this from happening?

To answer your questions, I will separate your questions into three parts so by the end you will have a clear understanding of how muscles and fat work. Let’s get to it

What’s The Best Method To Turn My Body Fat Into Muscle?

First, let me just say that it is impossible to convert fat into muscle, unless there is some magical way not discovered by man yet (and how we would love to discover that).

The thing is, muscle is muscle and fat is just fat; two distinctly different types of tissues that cannot be converted into each other.

• You can only gain or lose fat.
• You can only gain or lose muscle.

That’s where it all ends.

There is no other way around it. They are so different that they perform different functions in the body, just like how the heart is different from the brain or the liver from the kidney.

Of course, your body can lose fat and gain muscle in its place, making it seem like the muscles were created from the fat but that did not happen.

What really occurred was you lost one type of tissue and gained another. That is all. So to reiterate, you cannot turn fat into muscle!

How To Get Lean (What You’re Actually Trying To Do)

By asking this question, it’s obvious you want to achieve two things:

• To reduce your body fat
• To gain more muscle mass

To reach this goal, people generally incorrectly assume that the best way is to turn on tissue into the other.

They hope to achieve this by going through 1 process therefore killing two birds with one stone. 

Don’t get me wrong, it is efficient in theory but impossible in reality. 

But there is good news, you can achieve your goals, however, it will be in two different processes where you will have to lose the body fat by going into a calorie deficit and build muscle using an effective workout routine that sufficiently stimulate the muscles and consume a diet that supports your growth.

Keep in mind also that some people are actually capable of doing both at the same time to some extent. 

Since not everyone fits into that category, they will have to focus on one target at a time or alternate between losing fat and building muscle.

Does Muscle Turn Into Fat When You Stop Working Out?

To put it simply, NO.  

What actually happens when you stop working out is that your body gains fat and loses muscle mass.

The reason for this is that if you remove the training stimulus that tells your body it needs to keep muscles, then your body will slowly start losing its muscle mass.

Additionally, when you exercise you burn calories, therefore, if you stop working out then you end up burning less calories which will fat storage in your body, hence you gain more fat.

Bear in mind also that when people stop working out they tend to not adhere to whatever diet plan they were on while working towards their goal, leaning more towards overeating, late-night eating and eating junk foods which are high caloric.

These reasons always lead to an increase in body fat. 

Note that in this case, muscle is not tuning into body fat, the body is just losing muscle mass and gaining body fat. 

Still two completely different processes that can give the impression that one is turning into the other.

To answer your final question, how to stop this from happening?

There is only one way to prevent muscle loss when you stop working out is…. to keep working out.

Okay, so there are ways to minimize muscle loss but only on a short term-basis, but if you exceed the short-term (a month or longer) then gradual muscle loss in inevitable 

But on the flip side, you can prevent your body from gaining fat when you stop working out by ensuring that you don’t eat more calories that your body needs to maintain it. I know that’s easier said than done because, come on, food is just delicious right?

But keeping your goals in mind, I’m sure you can manage it. 

So to wrap it, muscle cannot turn into fat and fat cannot turn into muscle. I hope this answer your questions. Feel free to spread the word ☺