Hi to the PTs out there! Something I hear quite often is that every round of muscle burns about 30-50 calories. But, in this months UltraFit magazine, they say that studies show this figure's more in the range of 8-15 calories a day! Does anyone know what the real figure is?

    ^top

I thought it was 100kcals per lb of muscle per day

regardless more muscle == higher metabolic rate

    ^top

From what i can gather, no-one knows for sure what amount of calories is required per pound per day. But pretty much everyone agrees with what greg has said.

    ^top

They said the figures they quoted were based on scientific studies though, not general knowledge.

    ^top

Just a bumping this as I see Shuts is on board!

    ^top

Hi Mate

It depends on the individual, how they measured it, and when they measured it.

Firstly some studies take the figure at rest, so you're looking at how many calories the muscles burn when not doing anything. However we as individuals move all day, whether that's walking around or typing at a keyboard, muscle works.

On top of that the figure itself can vary quite significantly between individuals. For example, after completing the Efficient Muscle Building course, Adam had an extra 11-12 lbs of contractile tissue on his body, and to keep it, he had to eat an extra 900 calories per day. That works out to be nearly 80 calories per lb.

In my experience, I would say most people in the middle of the bell shaped curve will fall anywhere between around 35-75 extra calories per day per lb.

However, I am talking about the increase in how many calories they burn per day, i.e. how many more calories they now need to eat to maintain that lb of muscle, so that's not how many that pound burns when they're laying dormant with a douglas bag over their head, that's how many they burn extra doing their regular activities.

So the real value in the metabolic affect of extra muscle mass is not as much its calorie burning by just being there, but more its calorie burning as a result of being an active tissue. Fat doesn't contract so doesn't require many calories to stay alive, muscle works all day making you move which is where the bulk of the extra calories go.

Does that help?

Anthony

    ^top

Yeah, that's a brilliant answer actually. I hadn't thought about how much energy it takes to maintain a pound of muscle and the difference between that and the energy a pound of muscle uses at rest and when active. Cheers!

    ^top