IS IT MUSCLE OR IS IT FAT?

Have you seen well-built people with bulging pecs, six or eight packs and what have you. They look lean, yet solid and don't look like they have a spare ounce of weight on them.

But a person of a similar height and weight without the muscles will actually look flabby, overweight and rounded.

Why is that? It is simple: muscles use the fat and protein in the body. And people who are muscular need the extra protein anyway because they keep on exercising to keep their muscles or to build them.

When exercise is stopped, the extra fat and protein turns into fat and whatever your diet was when you were building your muscles, just goes on increasing the fat load your body carries if you don't exercise.

Muscles consume calories, so the more muscles you have, the more calories of the right kind, you can have. In fact, muscles are metabolically extremely active.

But muscles need to be exercised and used. If you have ever been bed ridden with an illness or fractured a limb, you will know how difficult it is to get back to the same routine you were on earlier. You feel more tired and weak and have lost muscle strength. You may even have to undergo physical rehabilitation to get the use of your limbs back. Of course you will have to take it slow and steady.

The best thing about building muscles is that they use up calories even when resting. So if you have more muscle mass as compared to fat, you will keep on burning calories, even when you are not exercising.

One of the best ways of building muscle and toning the body is lifting weights. If you go to a gym, the trainers there can advise you on how best to build muscles, which parts of your body need work and what are the exercises apart from weight lifting you can do to build the muscles.

Different sets of muscles need different kinds of workouts. It also depends on your body type and how you want to go from fat to fit. And as your muscles grow you will have to keep on challenging your body further to increase the muscle tone.

You will also get advice on what kind of foods to eat. And you have to be clear in your goals - if you don't want to have bulging muscles, but just a fit and toned body, you have to work towards that. All this will help you build muscle, lose fat and become fit as well.