They say you can lose inches without losing weight on the scale...?

but is the opposite true...Can you gain inches without gaining weight on the scale?

Public Comments

1. I do every year. I play competetive fastball and gain a lot of muscle and lose inches in the summer. Then in winter, my muscle turns to fat (not all of it!) and I go up a pant size. My weight has always been maintained at 180lbs.
2. I know I have... I also know that that could be bad. Gaining inches without showing it on the scale could mean you're losing muscle mass. I see it in my own body. I'm a pear shape, so while I'm not able to fit my pants more and more, my chest, shoulders and arms get bonier and bonier.
3. No. The reason that you lose inches but don't lose weight is that you gain muscle and muscle is heavier than fat. So in order to gain inches but not weight you would have to get fat in your body but lose muscle. It can happen on a small scale but not enough to really count. Muscle takes a long time to go away.
4. First off, muscle does not turn into fat or vice versa. Okay, increasing lean muscle mass increases metabolism, meaning you burn more fat, faster. You can gain muscle and burn fat and keep about the same build, and then you start getting thinner or bulkier, depending on the workout. You don't lose weight at first because muscle is more dense than adipose tissue, meaning an amount of muscle weighs more than the same amount of fat.
5. You can definitely gain inches without gaining weight. What happens is, your body is in starvation mode from not getting enough calories. This causes something called Gluconeogenesis, the process where your body turns muscle and organs (including your heart and skeletal muscles) into glucose for energy. Since the design of the human body takes lack of food into account, it's great at keeping fat while this process takes place. Since the body is in starvation mode, anything you eat causes a spike in insulin, which will make many of the calories you eat get stored as fat. This, coupled with food cravings and (usually) binge eating, causes a cycle that continues until you are gaining more fat than you are losing of muscle, and your body starts to gain inches. Since muscle weighs more than fat, if you're gaining more fat that your body is scavenging of muscle (by volume) you'll add inches but won't gain weight... One caveat to this is, most weight lost by dieting, alone, is water weight, so if you're well hydrated but are in starvation mode, you can definitely maintain the same weight while adding inches. This can easily be avoided by eating right. I suggest five to six meals a day, centered around high fiber, high protein, and limited to good fats (omega-3's and other healthy fats found in fish, flax seed, etc). Your body composition and metabolism will determine if you should go low carb or not. Figure out your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) and check your dietary intake to ensure that you are getting enough calories. I always make sure that my clients never cut their caloric intake to below their BMR, and they use light weight lifting and cardio to control their weight loss. I hope this helps! Edit: I'm a trainer who specializes in helping people lose 100 pounds and more, so this post is slanted to what I usually see with my clients. Blaise_Collins's post can also be the case, if you are lifting weights, dieting properly, and are adding more volume of muscle than you losing of fat. Normally, this type of gain is only seen at the beginning of an exercise program, since your body (usually) requires a caloric surplus to build muscle and a caloric deficit to burn fat. I say (usually) because there are people with the right genetic makeup who can lose fat and gain muscle quite easily. I used to compete against a few of these people when I was a competitive bodybuilder, and let me tell you, I am STILL jealous! :c) Good Luck!