1 pound of muscle burns 50 calories per day
The Claim: Adding an extra pound of muscle to your body causes you to burn about 50 more calories per day
Answer: FACTOID
Muscle tissue only burns about 5 calories per day. This is a well established scientific fact that you can easily verify with a quick browse through the scientific literature. The most metabolically active tissues are your internal organs (heart, liver, kidneys, brain etc).
There is a persistent factoid that 1 pound of muscle burns all kinds of extra calories and a common number cited is around 50 calories per pound of muscle. I’m not sure where this number comes from because there isn’t any scientific evidence to back this up.
If weight loss is your goal then adding muscle isn’t going to help. You gotta eat less calories.
John
7 Responses to “1 pound of muscle burns 50 calories per day”
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February 19th, 2010 at 10:49 am
Great series of vids, very informative. One question though, why does it seem like you’re so out of breath during the video?
February 19th, 2010 at 11:28 am
Ha, I was actually working out and filming these video answers between sets.
JB
February 19th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
If you run with more muscle mass in your legs, does amount of calories burned increase in a positive linear fashion with amount of mass added?
February 19th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Lars,
Any extra calorie burning would be a result of simply being a heavier person and carrying around more weight. So yes there would be a linear correlation, but it wouldn’t amount to very much.
JB
February 19th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
Ha! Finally someone asked the question! I was wondering the same thing, it seemed like you were doing wind sprints during the filming. You should have recorded the workout sets as well so we could critique you!!
BTW, I’m perfect so far on my quiz score.
February 20th, 2010 at 2:09 am
The 50 Kcal / lb muscle value was probably falsely derived from the Katch-Mcardle formula: 370 + (21.6 X lean mass in kg)
Probably some “experts” assumed that all lean mass is muscles and did an arithmetic errpr by multiplying 21.6 x 2.2 instead of dividing it, yielding 47.5 Kcals.
Funny.
February 20th, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Elie,
Great insight and I’ll bet your right on the money.
JB