Adjusting calories to account for higher than average muscle mass?

pbbananacoffeechocolate

Question that I've been pondering for awhile: If mfp's calorie goals are based on an average body composition, then does it make sense for more muscular people to increase calories? I've heard that muscle mass burns more calories at rest than fat. Would it make sense for me to tweak the system by bumping up activity level one notch, but still tracking workouts and eating back those calories, if hungry?

janejellyroll

I would base this on my real life results. If you're losing faster than expected on your goal, that's an indication that you do need to eat more (or if weight loss isn't your goal, if you're losing when you expect to maintain or not gaining when you expect to gain).

If things were going as I expected, I wouldn't eat more.

nutmegoreo

Since one of the biggest problems people have with weight loss is related to inaccurate tracking (rarely intentional), wouldn't it make more sense to start with the numbers it has given, and then see what your results are over the coming 4-6 weeks. After that point, use your own data to determine if you need to increase or decrease those calories.

KarenSmith2018

While muscle is active and burns calories it's like 6 calories per lb of muscle or something insanely small. So unless you are huge and have very little body fat I doubt it will make much difference given the errors in logging and calorie estimates in general

jemhh

janejellyroll wrote: »

I would base this on my real life results. If you're losing faster than expected on your goal, that's an indication that you do need to eat more (or if weight loss isn't your goal, if you're losing when you expect to maintain or not gaining when you expect to gain).

If things were going as I expected, I wouldn't eat more.

This. Exactly this.

Also, muscle burns about six calories per pound per day. Fat burns two. If you have ten pounds more muscle than average, which would be significant for a woman, that's just 60 calories more per day.

But yes, it's better to adjust based on results.