Imaginary conversations that I know people have had: I used to lift weights in college but the moment I stopped lifting weights all my muscle turned into fat. I put on more weight.

Lots to unpack in this fun line from the greatest hits of things said by inactive people who consume too much in their late 30’s.

Let’s go one point at a time:

1. The decision to stop lifting weights had nothing to do with you putting on weight. When you stopped lifting weights, your body started losing muscle mass. This lost muscle mass could have made you look leaner and more athletic. The loss of this tissue makes you weaker and more frail.

2. Muscle cells neither look nor behave anything like fat cells. To put on weight you had to provide your body with more energy than it expended in a day. The surplus of energy gets stored in brand new fat cells the body conjured up just for the energy storage cause. This makes you look 'fat'.

3. Your activity levels probably started to dip when you left college. Between a desk job, poor time management, ‘lifestyle’ choices and making your own money, you probably started eating and drinking more without spending more energy. This made you fat. Or as the cool kids call it ‘plus size’.

Takeaway :

Don’t blame an activity or cessation of it for putting on weight. You put on weight simply because you eat too much. You don’t look athletic because you make no effort to be athletic. And it is not your metabolism, it is your ignorance of how much energy you require to sustain your metabolism.