How Many Calories Does A Pound Of Muscle Burn?

October 16th, 2013 by

Cals Burned Per Pound Of Muscle

Posted on a very popular fitness page:

“Focus on lifting over cardio. Lifting at an intense high tempo burns way more calories than cardio. Adding lean muscle increases your BMR. Just adding 5 pounds of muscle will increase the amount of calories you burn each day by over 300!!”

What’s wrong here?

The author is claiming that each pound of muscle increases caloric requirements by 60 calories/day. Heck, I thought the popular 50 cals/lb/day was ridiculous, but this one takes the cake.

The truth?

You without fail always hear ‘fitness pros’ talking about how muscle has a big effect on improving metabolism. The fact of the matter is, it really doesn’t. In fact, each additional pound of muscle you add to your frame increases daily caloric requirements by 6 (5.9 actually) cals/lb/day. That is IT! That is a far cry from 60! That 5 lbs of muscle from the original quote? 30 calories. That’s like 1 TEASPOON of peanut butter.

On average, skeletal muscle makes up about 40% of your bodyweight. However, it only makes up about 20% of your BMR!

Can we kill this nonsensical claim and stop misleading people already?

*Heymsfield SB, et al. Body-size dependence of resting energy expenditure can be attributed to non-energetic homogeneity of fat-free mass. American Journal of Physiology, Endocrinology and Metabolism. 282:E132-E138; 2002

*McClave, S. A. and Snider, H. L. Dissecting the Energy Needs of the Body. Current Opinions in Clinical Nutritional Metabolic Care, 4(2): 143-147. (2001).