Fat-Burning Ability of Muscle
September 8th, 2005 by Y.G.The Diet Blog recently linked to this article in the Ledger regarding whether the fat-burning ability of muscle is exaggerated or not.
Building muscle is a piece of advice I’ve seen on many websites, articles and other texts since I’ve been paying more attention to weight loss and exercic. The general conensu is that muscle needs more energy than fat to function, thus the more developed they are, the more calories they’ll consume daily, even when you’re not doing anything, and the more your “basal metabolic rate” will be upped.
So, true or not? I’ve read the article, and I honestly wouldn’t be able to say whether this energy expenditure is exaggerated or not. What I think though is that it’s logical that “exercising” doesn’t mean “free pass to pig out”, and strength training should therefore follow the same way. Evidently, building muscle will not allow you to suddenly eat 500 or 600 more calories every day; it’d be nice, but it’d sound too good to be true anyway.
On the other hand, even if it wasn’t to improve metabolic rate at all, isn’t it better to have a nice silhouette all the same because we’ve built on some muscle? Isn’t that already an advantage and a reason for doing it? Studies may say that it’s overrated, but the fact remains: my silhouette looks better now that I’ve gained on muscle, and if just for this, it was and is worth it.
We’re not created equal in front of metabolic rates, but exercise is a good thing no matter what.
