How many more calories does muscle burn than fat?

It is said that increasing muscle mass through exercise increases calorie consumption during the day. According to this theory, people with a lot of muscle mass and a low body fat percentage should consume more calories at rest than those without. Live Science, a scientific media outlet, explains whether increased muscle mass really makes a big difference.

How many more calories does muscle burn than fat? | Live Science
https://www.livescience.com/health/anatomy/how-many-more-calories-does-muscle-burn-than-fat

Calories, a unit of energy, are the energy we get from food, and excess calories are stored primarily as fat. Organs that are constantly active, such as the brain, heart, kidneys, and liver, burn 20 times as many calories as skeletal muscle. One pound (0.45 kg) of inactive muscle burns 6 kcal per day, while the same amount of fat burns 2 kcal.

Muscles can also burn a significant amount of calories when they're active: A 2015 study found that men doing hydraulic resistance exercises burned more than 12.6 kcal per minute, while men running on a treadmill burned about 9.5 kcal per minute. In comparison, one pound of muscle at rest burns just 0.004 kcal per minute.

Edward Merritt, a kinesiologist at the University of Southwestern, says aerobic exercise is the most efficient way to burn calories in a single workout, but he argues that most people don't have the stamina to do intense aerobic exercise multiple times a week, so resistance exercise, which tests and builds muscles, is a more sustainable approach.

However, Merritt cautions that the idea that more muscle mass means more calories burned through resting metabolism is a misconception. The common belief is that the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn to maintain it, but that's not true.

'Simply lifting weights and sitting on the couch doesn't burn a lot of calories,' explains Gregory Steinberg, a metabolic researcher at McMaster University. 'When you have more muscle mass, you're moving more weight, so you're doing more work, and you're burning more calories.' In other words, even if you have more muscle, if you don't exercise, you're not going to burn many more calories.

Meanwhile, there are two main types of fat in the body. One is called 'white fat,' which is mainly responsible for storing calories, protecting organs, and secreting hormones that control hunger, but does not contribute to calorie consumption. The other is 'brown fat,' which burns calories to regulate body temperature when it is cold.

However, brown fat is not very efficient at burning calories: When inactive, one pound of brown fat burns 2 kcal per day, and 90 minutes in a cold environment burns only an additional 20 kcal, roughly the amount burned during two minutes of muscular activity.

According to Steinberg, it is likely that humans do not have enough brown fat to utilize for weight loss. Most research on brown fat has been done on rodents such as mice, but mice, which are much smaller than humans, have a lot of brown fat, so the results of that research may not be applicable to humans.

In conclusion, effective weight management requires not only building muscle mass but also regular exercise. In particular, establishing a sustainable exercise habit is the most effective approach for long-term health management, Live Science said.