Weighing in

Do you remember that old riddle we heard back in the fifth grade, "What weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of rocks?" Your first inclination may have been that of course, rocks are heavier than feathers. But, the real answer is hidden in the question. This riddle came rushing back to memory one morning when I came across some of my students loosely gathered after class. They were talking about how their weight was continually creeping up and the amount of stress it causes them. As I walked by one of the ladies blurted out, "But doesn't muscle weigh more than fat?" I could tell by their faces they were genuinely concerned. This brought to mind the many misconceptions about the relationship between health and weight. Since these myths affect us all, I felt the need to set the record straight.

A cup of fat weighs less than a cup of muscle. To say muscle weighs more than fat is a conundrum, a pound of each weighs, wella pound. But, muscle is more compact and smooth. It's more dense unlike adipose tissue (fat) which is lumpier, and takes up 20% more space than muscle. Muscle and fat look very different on our bodies because of their composition and where we tend to carry them. Fat collects in areas of our bodies that take away definition and shape. You notice it especially in the face and around the mid section. Our number one concern about fat should not be how it looks on our body but rather how it affects our body otherwise.
One of my first jobs as a young adult was working at the New Life health Spa. My job was to weigh and measure all new clients and show them how to use the fitness equipment in the gym. I was taking a new client through the routine, she was wearing a blue exercise leotard, remember those? I took all her measurements, waist, hips, bust, rib cage, arms, legs and height. I then realized she was exactly my size. I mentioned this to her and we were chatting about it as we walked over to the scale. She stepped on so I could record her weight and to my surprise, she weighed nine pounds less than me! For the longest time this really bothered me. I thought, how unfair? According to height and size we were identical so why should I have to weigh more? I felt gypped. For many years of my life I was embarrassed about how much I weighed. More so than how I looked, it was the number on the scale that bothered me. It always seemed higher than that of my peers and I was ashamed to actually say the number. I have since learned,

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