Turn fat into muscle – is that possible?

Turning fat into muscle - is that really possible?

Again and again you hear in the gym that strength training is important so that you can turn fat into muscle. It gets even funnier when you hear from people training that they first have to stuff themselves with mass (by which I mean mainly fat mass) and then will turn the fat into muscle. Sounds good, but unfortunately it is not possible. Let's take a look at the mechanisms behind muscle building and fat loss to explain why this claim belongs in the realm of fairy tales.

How are muscles built?

Muscles are subject to constant building up and breaking down. Even now (while you are reading this text), muscle mass is being built up and broken down in your body. When the muscle-building processes predominate, muscle tissue is built. When the muscle-breaking-down processes predominate, muscle tissue is broken down.

How can I stimulate the muscle-building processes?

There are two anabolic (building) stimuli for the muscle. The first is intense muscle training with as much muscle exhaustion as possible, with an appropriate tension duration of approx. 60 - 90 seconds per muscle function. The second is protein (essential amino acids). Besides your genetic prerequisites, these two points determine the growth of your muscles.

How does the process of muscle building work?

If you want to build muscles, you must increase the speed of muscle protein synthesis. Muscle protein synthesis is the process of producing muscle protein. But how does muscle protein synthesis work?

Your muscle cells have several cell nuclei, in which your DNA is stored. Your body's blueprint is located on your DNA. When you stimulate your muscle cell through strength training, a section of the blueprint for a new muscle cell is copied (this process is called transcription). This copy of the DNA section is called mRNA (for messenger RNA). This mRNA now contains the necessary information to produce a new muscle cell. The mRNA travels out of the cell nucleus through the nuclear pores and is then translated into a protein at the ribosomes (this process is called translation). During translation, the mRNA is read and the amino acids are assembled according to the blueprint of the mRNA. To carry out this process, these amino acids must of course be present in the right quantity. It is now also clear why muscle growth without protein (protein consists of amino acids) becomes rather difficult.

So is fat turned into muscle, or how is fat broken down?

In the body, fat is stored as so-called triglycerides (often also called triacylglycerides). Chemically, this is a glycerol esterified with 3 fatty acids. As with muscle building and breakdown, there are fat-building as well as fat-breaking-down processes.

This process is controlled mainly by the amount of energy consumed and the amount of energy used. If more energy is taken in than used, the surplus energy is (most likely) stored as body fat. If, however, more energy is used than taken in, body fat is (most likely) broken down.

How does the process of fat loss work?

To break down fat, the fat must first be released from the adipose tissue. This happens through a hydrolytic splitting of the natural fat into glycerin and 3 free fatty acids (called lipolysis).

The resulting fatty acids are then released into the blood. These fatty acids can then be taken up and metabolised by the muscles for beta-oxidation (breakdown of fatty acids in the mitochondria into energy) or by the liver for ketogenesis (formation of ketone bodies in the metabolic state of carbohydrate deficiency). Short-chain fatty acids can move freely in the blood, while long-chain ones are bound to transport proteins. The glycerin produced in lipolysis is also broken down by the liver and used for gluconeogenesis (production of sugar) or fatty acid synthesis (production of fat).

So can you turn fat into muscle?

Now you know that no muscle mass is produced during the fat-breakdown process. So you cannot turn fat into muscle. In fat breakdown, natural fat is simply converted into energy. In muscle building, amino acids are assembled into muscle proteins. These are two completely different processes.