Does Muscle Really Burn More Calories Than Fat?

There is a long held belief in the fitness world that for every 1-pound of muscle you gain, your body burns an additional 50 calories. On paper, this sounds awesome. Add 5 pounds of muscle, and you’ll burn an extra 250 calories per day or about a pound every 2 weeks.

This theory has led to plenty of people, myself included, rationalizing increasing how much they eat with the confidence that their muscle mass will prevent additional weight gain.  Unfortunately, it’s not true.

Research suggests that every pound of muscle is more likely to burn about 7-10 calories per day. You’re probably thinking, “Just 7 calories?”  Comparatively, a pound of fat will burn approximately 2 calories per day, an insignificant gap when you do the math.

This isn’t exactly the best campaign for weight training. But, focusing on how many calories muscle burns is only a small piece of the metabolism picture. If you really want to understand the impact on your metabolism, you have to look at what it takes to build muscle. A far better question is does building muscle increase your metabolism? It’s important to differentiate the metabolic benefits of having muscle and building muscle.

While adding 10 pounds of muscle could take years and only burn about 60 extra calories per day when all is said done, the work you’d need to put in to build (and maintain) that muscle would still create positive changes for your body and metabolism.

In fact, research has shown that weight training burns more calories than was originally thought and the act of resistance training can keep your metabolism elevated for up to 48 hours after you finish your workout. In addition, research indicates that as much as 90% of the calories you burn from weight training can occur after you finish your workout because of the “after burn” effect.

When it comes to weight loss, or rather, fat loss, many people’s first concern is burning calories. It’s scientifically proven that creating a caloric deficit — where you burn more calories than you take in — can help you drop a few pounds or sizes. While cardio exercises like running or walking, are often seen as the best way to do this, it turns out weight training is in many ways a better choice.

To understand the relationship between weights and calories, you need to know the difference between aerobic and anaerobic exercise. Sustained aerobic exercise, like steady jogging or cycling, is low intensity and can thus be done for a longer period of time. Your body gets enough oxygen to ensure that you can keep doing what you’re doing.

Anaerobic exercise, like weight training, on the other hand, is high intensity. With quick bursts of high intensity exercise, your body doesn’t get enough oxygen to supply your muscles quickly enough, so your cells start to break down sugars instead. Since this level of intensity cannot be maintained for very long, anaerobic exercise tends to be short-lived. Anaerobic exercise may be short-lived, but its calorie-burning effects are not. Immediately following a strength training session, the body needs to replenish the energy drained and repair the muscle damage that has been caused. The repair process uses aerobic energy for several hours. In other words, more intense exercises such as weight and strength training burn calories and fat for a longer time post-exercise than lower intensity aerobic exercises.

The more muscle you have, the more likely you are to earn it from workouts. And, the more you work out, the more intensity you can apply to those workouts to improve your metabolism.

While exercise will never be the primary mover of metabolism, science does suggest that the process of building or maintaining muscle can have a significant impact on your metabolism and help with fat loss.