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Muscle burns more energy than fat. As people age, their muscle mass declines without sufficient exercise, so we'd naturally expect the average person's metaboli
by logicchains 3y ago
Muscle burns more energy than fat. As people age, their muscle mass declines without sufficient exercise, so we'd naturally expect the average person's metabolism to decline via this even if "metabolism per kg muscle" didn't change.
- hiAndrewQuinn 3y agoThis is exactly the kind of clear headed reasoning from prior knowledge I love coming to Hacker News to see. You're right. Thank you for the extra bit of gym motivation.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- paulpauper 3y agomuscle burns very little calories, and even pro bodybuilders who have lots of muscle quickly put on fat off-season when not dieting. I don't think this explains it.
- jayGlow 3y agothey put on fat because the body fat level they compete at is unsustainable for long periods of time. additionally gaining fat is unavoidable when trying to gain muscle past a certain point.
- dp-hackernews 3y agoI would argue they are not "gaining" fat, rather they are "balancing" the amount of fat the body considers normative. Of course you can easily acquire more fat with an inappropriate diet consisting of too much sugar, but a healthy diet will see your body maintain the ratios that are optimal for your current requirements. It never ceases to amaze me that we think that we know better, and yet the human body, as with other animals etc, have been around for quite some time now. Even if we had all the data from the past that we think is important now, we still wouldn't know better. There was a post the other day regarding "The prosecutors fallacy" that might fit well with this sort of subject matter.
- stvltvs 3y agoThere are multiple factors in maintaining bodyweight: diet, activity level, muscle mass, metabolism, etc. We shouldn't expect a single factor to explain everything, but holding eveything else constant, more muscle and the physical activity necessary to maintain it will burn more calories. It's an important part of maintaining health as we age.
- jakeinspace 3y agoIt is essentially impossible to put on muscle at their size without also gaining fat, because they need to be in a large caloric surplus. During the off-season, pro bodybuilders are still training, they just increase their calorie intake significantly. Muscle does burn quite a few calories passively, it's just not nearly enough on a 260lb man to cover 6k-10k calorie intake.
- logicchains 3y agoMuscle tissue burns 7-10 calories per pound per day. This means someone who gains 100 pounds of muscle (e.g. from 150 lbs untrained to a 250 lbs bodybuilder) would increase their metabolism by 700-1000 calories, almost a 50% increase in the average daily male calorie requirements of around 2000 calories.
- civilitty 3y agoPutting on 100 lbs of muscle is impossible without steroids for 99% of people even with 10-15 years of constant training. Estimates vary but 50 lbs of lean muscle mass is generally considered the natural maximum for men.
- paulpauper 3y agoeven with steroids virtually impossible. the heaviest pro bodybuilders ever peak at around 270-290 lbs
- glouwbug 3y agoI think 100 was just a nice round number to make their point easier to read
- blipvert 3y agoThat is an insane amount of training - big lifestyle changes! I increased my calorific needs by 1000 a day by doing a 10K run (1hr) before breakfast. Still a 160lb weakling :)
- dp-hackernews 3y ago"Even when you’re sleeping at night, the brain consumes roughly as much energy as it does during the day." https://www.brainfacts.org/brain-anatomy-and-function/anatomy/2019/how-much-energy-does-the-brain-use-020119 https://www.brainfacts.org/brain-anatomy-and-function/anatom... Does this change over time also?
- constantly 3y agoI wouldn’t trust a site called BrainFacts to be unbiased given the source.
- m3kw9 3y agoA lot of skinny people have high metabolism, how do you explain that?
- cpncrunch 3y agoLikely genetic, such as beta adrenergic receptors.
- arpinum 3y agoFidgeting.
- paulpauper 3y agoThen why can't someone just make an exercise program that replicates this fidgeting. How is fidgeting more potent than 10,000+ steps/day , which a lot of people do but still stay fat.
- arpinum 3y agoThe question is about base metabolic rate, not energy expenditure from exercise. Fidgeting is a non conscious act performed throughout the day, it is not exercise. Exercise can actually reduce fidgeting and this shows up in athletes lower BMR that needs to be taken into account for meal programmes. It is easy to eat more calories than are used in taking 10.000 steps.
- jodrellblank 3y agoYou may as well ask if John Carmack is so productive because he's really motivated, why can't someone "just" make a productivity program that replicates this motivation, and then we can all be that productive. How is 'motivation' more potent than 8hrs/day which a lot of people do and still aren't as productive.
- paulpauper 3y agoit's not at all the same thing. fidgeting is a movement. so is exercise. productivity is something more vague.
- crazygringo 3y agoBut on the other hand, adding either muscle or fat burns more energy period, and we watch the average person's weight gain somewhere between 10 and 20 pounds over the first half of adulthood. So we could easily expect the average person's metabolism to increase as well, simply to support the extra body mass regardless of composition. Balancing out the two effects can only really be determined through careful statistics, and is going to be extremely variable per-person.
- trefoiled 3y agoThere's good evidence that metabolic rate does vary, but not significantly. https://examine.com/articles/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/ https://examine.com/articles/does-metabolism-vary-between-tw...
- kenjackson 3y agoThe article states the difference is small, but also notes “ The majority of the population exists in a range of 200-300kcal from each other”. All things being even 200kcal difference per day is about 20lbs per year attributed purely to metabolic difference. Now you can say to just eat 200kcal less per day, but those little differences on a daily basis add up.
- vsareto 3y agoEven better if you burn 200 more per day without feeling more hungry than someone who burns less than you
- trefoiled 3y agototally valid point. I would expect most people to be surprised that the variance is typically smaller than a spoonful of peanut butter, but the nature of gaining or losing weight is such that even a spoonful of peanut butter over years could be the difference between many pounds of body mass.
- Adverblessly 3y ago> All things being even 200kcal difference per day is about 20lbs per year attributed purely to metabolic difference. As you gain weight, you burn more energy, even just being idle, so 200kcal doesn't means 20lbs per year (obviously so, as otherwise you'd gain 600lbs in 30 years). An extra 200kcals per day implies gaining extra weight until the extra energy you burn cancels it out, and then stabilizing there. IIRC the rule of thumb is ~25kcal/day/kg so you'd just naturally balance out to being 8kg heavier than the baseline.
- adrian_b 3y agoIn the paper they say that the daily energy expenditure matches well a function of the fat-free mass (a power-law function, at high masses the energy per mass ratio is lower than at low masses). Therefore all their data is based only on fat-free mass, i.e. total body mass minus fat mass. So all their conclusions are not influenced by the amount of fat vs. muscle.