Will Gaining Muscle Get Rid of Fat?
The case for building muscle to lose fat looks to be a simple one.
For each and every pound of muscle you build, your metabolism will go up by between 50 and 100 calories per day.
Because of this, putting on just a few pounds of lean muscle will use up as many calories as running 25 miles each week.
All while you’re sleeping, seated at the desk or resting on the couch.
Or is it? I’m not so sure that building muscle to lose fat is a very good idea…
The initial problem is that muscle doesn’t burn off 50-100 calories for every pound.
The truth is, studies show that the resting metabolic rate of muscle is significantly lower than the majority think – around six calories for every pound.
I ought to also point out that fat is a lot more than merely lifeless tissue. It releases proteins such as leptin and cytokines, which will impact your rate of metabolism. Fat has a metabolic rate of around two calories per pound.
So if you were to lose a couple of pounds of fat and replace it with the same quantity of lean muscle, your resting metabolism would rise by less than ten calories each day. That’s not enough to have any kind of substantial influence on fat burning.
The approximations of the resting metabolism of muscle tissue I’ve just provided do make one presumption – a constant rate of protein turnover.
However, weight training will accelerate protein turnover (which refers to a rise in the speed of protein synthesis and breakdown) in the hours and days after exercise.
In other words, although the rate of metabolism of muscle while resting isn’t as high as some individuals think, the metabolic rate of muscle when it’s recuperating suggests that those that have much more muscle mass are going to use up more calories inside the post-exercise phase.
Another issue is that you’d need to build a massive amount of muscle mass to have a substantial influence on your metabolic rate.
To expend an additional 10,000 calories a month – sufficient to shed nearly 3 pounds of body fat – you’d need to build more than 50 pounds of muscle mass.
That’s much more than the average joe is going to build throughout their training life span.
In short, the very idea of building muscle to lose fat is a mistaken one.
Nevertheless that doesn’t mean that lifting weights is worthless if you’re looking to lose body fat. Far from it. Resistance training will almost certainly enhance your body composition in a few significant ways.
To begin with, strength training can burn calories (and fat). Not just during your workout, but – as long as you train intensely – after it’s finished as well.
Second, in the event you don’t do some form of strength training while you’re dieting, a lot of the pounds you get rid of may come from muscle tissue in addition to fat.
It’s also worth pointing out that the amount of weight you drop is a lot less important compared to exactly where that lost fat comes from. Should you drop ten pounds of body fat while putting on three pounds of muscle tissue, your weight on the scales is only going to have gone down by 7 pounds. But you’ll look 13 pounds different.
So what sort of resistance training should you be engaging in?
An effective strength training program should be based upon squats, deadlifts, rows, chin-ups (or pulldowns) and presses using heavy(ish) weights and low (5-8) reps. Use whatever resistance is accessible – barbells, sandbags, strength training machines, or even your own bodyweight – to get the job done.