Muscle Turns to Fat if You Stop Exercising - Fact or Fiction? Find Out! by Heather Frey

True or false: When you stop working out, muscle turns into fat. 

Answer: FALSE! 

Muscle and fat are made from completely different tissue. You can no more turn muscle into fat than you can turn fat into muscle. What happens when you stop exercising is that your muscles atrophy (waste away) and get smaller and softer. Add to this the fact that most people may not be sticking to the most nutritious eating plan so you have soft “layer” (i.e. fat) on top of soft muscle. The beauty is that you can turn that around at any moment. Those muscles are just waiting to be worked out!