More Muscle Mass = Eating More Calories?

Caroline393 wrote: »

I'm not anywhere close to my goal yet, but I am curious about this and would like to know the answer. I've read that strength training is beneficial for weight loss and maintenance because not only does it have lots of health benefits and makes you look better, but muscle takes more calories to keep than fat does. So does that mean that you can eat more when you have more muscle mass?

A pound of fat burns about 2 calories per day. A pound of muscle burns about 6 calories per day. So if you compare two people of identical height/weight/age/gender and one of them has 20 pounds more muscle mass, that person burns a whopping 80 more calories per day. The difference isn't as huge as many people think it is.

Caroline393 wrote: »

And my second question: when you get where you want to as far as % body fat and muscle and want to maintain, how do you calculate how many calories you can eat? Because just entering your weight into MFP doesn't take into account if that weight is made up of fat vs muscle, so how do you know if you're consuming the right amount to maintain your muscle mass?

There are three components to muscle retention - calorie intake, protein intake and strength training (it's a gross oversimplification, but good enough for general purposes). You'll know you're at the correct calorie intake if your weight is staying static (within a range of 5 pounds or so to account for fluctuations). If you want to ensure you're retaining muscle as much as possible, you'd want to engage in a well-designed strength training program and have adequate protein intake. Formulas are all well and good to get you into the ballpark as far as calorie intake, but keeping an eye on the scale and tracking your overall trend is the most accurate way to dial it in from there.