The species of Homo sapiens is such that we tend to look for excuses and reasons to be lazy. We go to any extent to talk ourselves out of some hard work. That may not be true for all Homo sapiens, but it applies to quite a few of us. So when we do not wish to exercise those muscles, we invent these myths. Heres another one

Myth #3: Muscle Turns to Fat

BUSTED: I occasionally hear many women talking about how they are sckeptical of weights and working out coz if they stop the muscle will turn to fat. Now, how imaginative is that??? I thought the whole point of resitance training is to rid the body of fat, not to gain it! Ever heard of fat turning into muscle if you go on a diet? Muscle cant turn into fat any more than fat can turn to muscle. Muscle (metabolically active) and fat (metabolically inactive) are two completely different tissues responsible for their own functions. Just as your heart and liver are two different organs performing completely different functions, the same goes for muscle and fat. Now just think about it, can your heart turn into your liver, or vise versa? If there were any truth to the above statement there would be a lot of people out there with great muscle potential, if you know what I mean

An explanation to the above myth is that some bodybuilders do gain extra weight off-season in preparation for the up coming competitive season. While it is true that even shapely women who work out actively may gain weight as they get older or stop working out, but how does it make them different from an average Indian woman?

There is a biological reason for the weight gain. The metabolism slows down as we age, meaning the body needs fewer calories per day to maintain itself. The downfall is that most people, including bodybuilders/actively working out women, dont reduce their caloric intake to compensate for this slowdown and the end result is fat gain.

Another explanation is that bodybuilders/actively working out women, in hard training, develop enormous appetites and need the extra calories for muscle growth and repair. If the intake stays the same when training volume is reduced or ceased, the unburned calories get stored as fat; again, this is no different than the regular people like you and me.

Stop Making Excuses

Simply put, stop making excuses. Not exercising is far more harmful to your body, image, and health than working out. Exercising and nutrition is a learned lifestyle, if you are not consistent with it you will decrease muscle and increase fat, but muscle definitely will never turn into fat.