Friday, September 9, 2011

How a little more muscle can help you lose weight faster

It makes sense that muscle cells burn fat faster than fat cells, but I just read an article about health misconceptions about how fast that really is.

Skeletal muscle cells burn approximately 13 Calories per kilogram per day or around 6 Calories per pounds per day. So, if you weigh in at 180 pounds and are a man, your skeletal muscles will burn around 442 Calories per day when you are just sit around all day. If you are an average female at that same mass, you’ll burn about 379 Calories from your at rest skeletal muscles per day.

Fat cells will burn around 4.5 Calories per kilogram or approximately 1/3 what skeletal muscle cells will burn.

That is a three times faster calorie burn for every pound of muscle gained. I think that means that when I get serious about losing weight, I will dust off the old weight bench and add a little muscle building time to my morning routine.

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