your brain is the fattest organ in your body!

1 hour ago, knowledgeispower917 said:

your brain is the fattest organ in your body!

Don’t be silly.

You don’t turn anything into muscle when you exercise. It has to be a muscle to begin with.

1 hour ago, swansont said:

You don’t turn anything into muscle when you exercise. It has to be a muscle to begin with.

thanks, now i feel stupid.

42 minutes ago, knowledgeispower917 said:

thanks, now i feel stupid.

You probably heard bodybuilders talking about turning fat to muscle. It's not the case.

2 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

You probably heard bodybuilders talking about turning fat to muscle. It's not the case.

And vice versa?

Does muscle not actually turn to fat (as I think I have heard said) but does it simply waste away - with fat increasing or decreasing regardless?

Ps I wonder if there have been studies as to whether body building is a physically unhealthy recreation in the long term (I am sure practioners may feel the opposite)

19 minutes ago, geordief said:

And vice versa?

Does muscle not actually turn to fat (as I think I have heard said) but does it simply waste away - with fat increasing or decreasing regardless?

Ps I wonder if there have been studies as to whether body building is a physically unhealthy recreation in the long term (I am sure practioners may feel the opposite)

If muscle was deaminated for energy purposes to glucose, I can't see why it would be turned to fat, although it could. It doesn't work vice versa going from fat to protein because fat doesn't have the amino acids to directly create protein structures, whereas protein can be broken down to create glucose and stored as fat.

You have to think about different levels of organization. On the smallest scale, muscles are made out of specific proteins. They form the fibers allowing to do contractions. One step up, we have muscle cells (or myocytes) that is a contractile cell type that has a lot of these proteins organized in a fashion, that allows the cells to contract as a whole. Then, another step up, we have muscle tissue, which contains a large number of cells, forming what we often talk about when we talk about a msucle (there are many forms which different functions, such as in the lining of our intestines and blood vessels, which are very different from e.g., the biceps).

Fat also have multiple levels of organization, from the molecule (lipid) in each of our cells, to organized fat deposits, which are formed by specialized fat storage cells.

So it is correct that a protein molecule can be converted to sugar and lipids (and vice versa) via our central metabolism, but that is not what bodybuilders mean. Rather they an increase in the mass of muscle tissue and a reduction of fat tissue. There is no direct conversion, as the increase in muscle mass is not directly linked to an equal reduction in fat.

With that as basis, it is also clear why organs generally cannot turn into something else: most cells in our bodies are specialized (differentiated) and cannot suddenly become something else. There are minor and very interesting exception, where a cell can be become less differentiated and switch a role, and it is most frequently observed when e.g. there is a need for tissue repair. This is an interesting area of research (and funnily, has been observed in adipocytes) but again, this is not what folks mean in exercise-related contexts.

Re thread title,

A moment of thought might suggest that wearing heavy headgear would most likely strengthen neck muscles. IIRC, Mark Zuckerberg has promoted something like this. Here's a humorous article on Mark's thicker neck and embrace of the manosphere....I believe the composition of his brain will become clear as you read.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/18/mark-zuckerberg-masculine-energy