How To Turn Fat Into Muscle (Is It Possible?)

A common idea on the minds of many new to training and diet-related stuff is how to turn fat into muscle. Is it possible? Can you really turn your body fat into lean muscle tissue? Today, you’ll get the answer and be equipped to lose body fat and build more muscle forever.

How To Turn Fat Into Muscle

To quickly get this out of the way, there’s no way possible to turn fat into muscle because they’re two entirely different tissues. Your fat tissue is made up of the fat you consume. Every single time you eat a meal containing fat, you store that fat in the fat cells on your body.

Fat is made up of something called triglycerides, which are made up of the fat we consume in our food. And the forms of fat we consume are monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, and saturated fats. After ingestion, they’re broken down in the bloodstream and then stored in our cells.

And since muscle tissue is made up of amino acids (which are the building blocks of proteins), fat can, in no way, be converted as an energy source into amino acids.

So understand this: fat cannot be turned into muscle directly. When you lose fat and gain muscle, you’re actually burning body fat through the mobilization of fatty acids, and building muscle through weight training and the repair that’s happening when you consume protein in your diet.

When people want to turn fat into muscle, what they mean is they want to lose fat and maintain their muscle, or build more muscle and reveal some definition. There are 3 steps to losing fat and gaining muscle.

1. Training Properly

The best way to go about doing this is to train frequently using a full body, or an upper/lower training split. This ensures you’re hitting each muscle enough to provide the proper stimulus for maintenance and growth. I am of course partial to my Beginner Workout Routine for a 3-day split.

For women, I recommend my muscle building guide for women or the weight training for women article.

For men, you can check out LGN365, or my hypertrophy training article.

2. Create A Dietary Deficit

Burning body fat is all about creating a dietary deficit. If you aren’t in a negative calorie balance, no magical amount of training or meal timing is going to matter one bit. Eating for fat loss is simple.

• Create a dietary deficit (burn more than you’re consuming).
• Make sure you eat enough protein (check my how much protein do you need article for a full explanation).
• Don’t go on a low carbohydrate diet.  It’s not good for your thyroid health, nor will it help you maintain your training performance. And if you’re not maintaining training performance, you’re probably losing muscle. So don’t fall for the low carb trap. If you’re still worried, read this: Is Sugar Bad For You?

Oh, and I’ve already got you covered with a guide on how to lose fat.

3. Give Yourself Time

Losing body fat and building your body through weight training takes a lot of time. Don’t fall for the gimmicky, short-term solutions that just leave you high and dry with no results to show for your half-hearted efforts.

And just like all of these people who got the results they wanted, they put in the time and effort.