Ok let me get this straight. More muscle more calorie burn?

dilliot2k

Does my ability to burn calories go up when I gain more muscle and loose weight?

I ask this because it's my understanding that it takes more calories to move your body when your over weight.

Can somebody help me understand. I'm new and trying to learn, and I hope you guys can school me.

psuLemon

The greater your lean body mass (muscle, tissues, bones, etc.. everything that isn't fat) the higher your metabolic rate. So yes, the more muscle you have the more you burn. But it's practically impossible to gain muscle on a calorie deficit.

psuLemon

For a visual understand. Lets say we have two people; person one is 200 lbs at 10% body fat, and person 2 is 200 lbs at 20%.


Person # 1

LBM = 200 - (200 * .1) = 180
BMR (metabolic rate) = 370+(9.79759519*180) = 2133.6

Person # 2

LBM = 200 - (200 * .2) = 160
BMR = 370+(9.79759519*160)= 1937.6


@ 10% body fat, you burn 196 calories more than if you were the same weight @ 20% body fat. This is why it is so important to maintain lean body mass throughout your weight loss journey. This is also why people that come off of VLCD tend to gain weight back faster is they lose a lot of lean body mass from not receiving enough foods or the right type of exercise.

MoreBean13

You're talking about two different things.

1) BMR is correlated to lean muscle mass. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn just sitting around doing nothing. But, like psulemon said, you're unlikely to gain enough muscle mass while dieting to make a difference.

2) You burn more calories DOING THINGS when you're overweight- for example, if a 120-lb person and a 220-lb person were to run 1 mile at the same pace, the 220-lb person has to physically move an extra hundred pounds for a mile, so they burn more calories doing the same activity.

LesterBlackstone

Muscle burns more than fat, but not much.

http://weightology.net/?p=192