Sort of off the usual topic but a facebook friend (female of course 
) recently asked: “How much more does a muscle weight compare to fat of the same volume?”. It got me thinking, recalling all sorts of bullshit stats from the countless men’s health magazines I’ve read. At first I thought I remembered reading that muscle weighs 2-3x more than fat, bull. It wasn’t easy to google this up as people asking this question on teh internets would phrase it: “how much does a pound of muscle weigh compared to a pound of fat”… and the answers being, a pound is a flippin’ pound.
I finally came across the answer which to be honest, surprised me as I was quite certain of my 2-3x estimate, it turns out that muscle density is 1.06 g/ml and fat density is (about) 0.9 g/ml. Thus, one liter of muscle would weigh 1.06 kg and one liter of fat would weigh 0.9 kg. In other words, muscle is about 18% more dense than fat.
The 3x figure applies to energy density, where a ml of muscle holds 3x more chemical energy as compared to fat.
There you go, useless health related fact for 2011.
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