How many calories in a pound of muscle?

[schnarf.]

Originally Posted by Michael in FtW

Yeah, you could say that - but look again at what you just said, it's wrong (as stated). Excess calories are those comsumed above those metabolized.

I agree on the best ways to partition towards muscle, but just as a nitpick, it's wrong to say excess are those that are not metabolised. Metabolism is any processing of nutrients, excess or not, they are all processed whether or not they are burned off or stored.

You, and some other previous posters, want an exact (guesstimate) number of calories required to gain 1-Lb of lean muscle so here it is - 3,500 calories.

.

I'm not after a plan to gain muscle, I have that down. I am just interested in the energetic cost to build a pound of muscle. If it is 3500cals (guide) then my final question is, how was that calculated? Isn't it a bit coincidentally suspicious it's the same for fat although fat is much higher in energy? That would mean the energy value of muscle which would be well below that of fat by itself, would be pretty balanced with fat when the energy for the extra complexity of muscle components was all tallied up.

[wysiwyg]

Dear all, I have no clue what are you talking about but using some basic engineering principles, I will drop my two cents:

Quoting scharf.: "I am a weightlifter, I have figured over the years how much I need to stay the same or gain lose/weight. I'm just interested in a typical figure for muscle gain as there is one for fat"

If you know approx. how many calories you need to keep the same/gain/lose weight, then do the following experiment.
a) Check your BMI for your desired/regular/normal weight.
Calculate your muscle weight based on body weight and BMI %.
b) Increase your calories ingestion and your gym routine for a certain period of time.
Both increases should be controlled and monitored, you should gain muscle weight.
c) Verify your BMI and calculate your muscle weight again for your new body weight.
If the increases were significant, you should have higher muscle weight.

You can estimate now, the muscle weight increase based on the calories and gym routine changes.
Since there are two variables (in theory, I will explain more later), you can't associate the muscle weight gains just to calorie ingestion. I believe it probably better to associate it to the gm routine since calories are easier to monitor, therefore, keep as a constant for this experiment.
All of this is assuming your body functions and muscle weight changes are Linear variables, which I am sure they are not. I'd venture to say they are time, body weight and total muscle weight (BMI) dependant.

Linear variables explanation: By this, I mean that muscle gains are probably fast in the beginning of a program (time dependancy) but not so fast after an adaptation period. Muscle weight also is dependant in total body weight; this is harder to explain but think the reverse: a heavier person will burn more calories doing exactly the same excercise than a lighter person because of the added effort required and muscle weight gain is certainly dependant on your BMI, the higher the BMI is, the harder will be to gain weight.

Since these variables are not strictly linear, it is pretty hard to establish a general guideline since we are and function differently, and even ourselves can gain/lose muscle weight according to different circumstances.

I hope this makes sense to you. I put with some engineering terms what some other fellows have already explained but I guess using this, you can calculate an estimated number.

Oops, I didn't read the last comment that Michael in FtW posted.

[buckytom]

Originally Posted by schnarf.

Also, I don't see how you can build strength without also building muscle.

it depends on what you call "building muscle". there's different types of muscle fibers, with different densities. essentially, there's slow twitch and fast twitch muscle fibers (and sub-cats of each), each with their own characteristics of athletic strength.

i think the best answer stated here is there's no fixed number because of the number of variables involved, the most basic of which are genetics and epi-genetics.

[schnarf.]

Originally Posted by wysiwyg

Dear all, I have no clue what are you talking about but using some basic engineering principles, I will drop my two cents:

Quoting scharf.: "I am a weightlifter, I have figured over the years how much I need to stay the same or gain lose/weight. I'm just interested in a typical figure for muscle gain as there is one for fat"

If you know approx. how many calories you need to keep the same/gain/lose weight, then do the following experiment.
a) Check your BMI for your desired/regular/normal weight.
Calculate your muscle weight based on body weight and BMI %.
b) Increase your calories ingestion and your gym routine for a certain period of time.
Both increases should be controlled and monitored, you should gain muscle weight.
c) Verify your BMI and calculate your muscle weight again for your new body weight.
If the increases were significant, you should have higher muscle weight.

You can estimate now, the muscle weight increase based on the calories and gym routine changes.
Since there are two variables (in theory, I will explain more later), you can't associate the muscle weight gains just to calorie ingestion. I believe it probably better to associate it to the gm routine since calories are easier to monitor, therefore, keep as a constant for this experiment.
All of this is assuming your body functions and muscle weight changes are Linear variables, which I am sure they are not. I'd venture to say they are time, body weight and total muscle weight (BMI) dependant.

Linear variables explanation: By this, I mean that muscle gains are probably fast in the beginning of a program (time dependancy) but not so fast after an adaptation period. Muscle weight also is dependant in total body weight; this is harder to explain but think the reverse: a heavier person will burn more calories doing exactly the same excercise than a lighter person because of the added effort required and muscle weight gain is certainly dependant on your BMI, the higher the BMI is, the harder will be to gain weight.

Since these variables are not strictly linear, it is pretty hard to establish a general guideline since we are and function differently, and even ourselves can gain/lose muscle weight according to different circumstances.

I hope this makes sense to you. I put with some engineering terms what some other fellows have already explained but I guess using this, you can calculate an estimated number.

Oops, I didn't read the last comment that Michael in FtW posted.

Good answer. I'm a member of a few bodybuilding boards and this hasn't been covered directly. I have actually just found something which is pretty useful. It is a list of laymen points discerned from multiple and complex studies on the issue of fat loss/muscle loss, but you can take the reverse to see this from a muscle gain/fat standpoint. In the context of burning muscle for fuel it mentions a pound of muscle is 600cals, but this doesn't necessarily mean it only takes that much to create it. As you have mentioned the guide here says to experiment to see how weight changes. On a deficit of 3500 lose it slowly and most maybe be fat, a loss of ~1lb. Lose it very quickly and much maybe muscle- worst case all---> 6lbs weight loss as each lb muscle gives only 600cals. Once again the ratios of loss of fat/muscle depend on the persons type and size. eg the more fat you have the more readily your body will lose a higher proportion of fat than muscle. Going back to my question, the amount of energy to gain an amount of muscle could be estimated from experimenting.

However, while the general figure for loss is 600 for muscle, it does seem to be implied for gain is 3500 as it is recommended to increase daily by 500. With that in mind I'm interested in how the shortfall of 2900cals comes into play when the product itself is only 600. Clearly buidling muscle is not like building fat stores, but it would be interesting to see how the energy was split up into various parts of the building process.

[schnarf.]

I just came across conflicting info on cals to gain muscle, according to this source you do (variance aside which you can adjust for) only need as many cals to build muscle as it gives when it's broken down, ie 600cals for 1lb per week, or about 100 cals per day surplus.

If we chemically analyzed a pound of fat and a pound of muscle, we would discover some interesting facts.

Both fat and muscle contain water, lipids (fats), and protein, in varying amounts: WaterLipidsProteinMuscle70%7%22%Fat22%72%6%
Calorically speaking, a pound of fat has 3,500 calories while a pound of muscle contains only 600 calories. Most of muscle is water, whereas fatty tissue is mainly composed of fat.

To gain body fat, all a person has to do is eat 1,000 extra calories a day and he will gain two pounds a week. To gain a pound of muscle a week it is necessary to first stimulate muscular growth through several high intensity workouts, and then add an additional 100 calories each day to the diet.

Now I am tempted to dismiss the small energy requirement but, most of muscle is water, and, the 500 per day increases which are mentioned are typically the upper end of recommendations, for hard gainers some of whom go even higher. The lower ranges I have seen are daily increases of 1-250cals, so perhaps this figure of 600 is accurate theoretically.

[Michael in FtW]

Let's conduct an experiment to put your theory to the test, schnarf.

Since you know how many calories you need to consume to matain your weight without either weight gain or loss ....

Without any other adjustments to your exercise/diet routine ... add 100 cals per day for 4 weeks (28 days). Since the source of the calories seems to be insignficant (you are only looking at clories and not their source, right) - make it 1 Tablespoon US (15 ml) Extra virgin olive oil divided between the number of meals you consume per day (that's about 120 calories/day).

If your theory is right, that +600 cals make a pound of muscle, you should gain about 5.6 lbs in 4 weeks.

[schnarf.]

Originally Posted by Michael in FtW

Let's conduct an experiment to put your theory to the test, schnarf.

Since you know how many calories you need to consume to matain your weight without either weight gain or loss ....

Without any other adjustments to your exercise/diet routine ... add 100 cals per day for 4 weeks (28 days). Since the source of the calories seems to be insignficant (you are only looking at clories and not their source, right) - make it 1 Tablespoon US (15 ml) Extra virgin olive oil divided between the number of meals you consume per day (that's about 120 calories/day).

If your theory is right, that +600 cals make a pound of muscle, you should gain about 5.6 lbs in 4 weeks.

You're right, I didn't mention source but although I used to lean towards the calorie type idea like most ppl, I have been corresponding with a very well informed nutritional post doc who has convinced many that energy is the overriding factor of importance and not whether you take in slightly more carbs or fat. If I could keep my activity constant I would perform that experiment and I would use the extra virgin too, maybe even a side trial with carbs extra instead just to see. The good thing about the 600 guide is that if it holds you could estimate muscle/fat gain by the scales if your cals were moderate. If you gained only 1 pound from 3500 you'd know it was all fat, if you gained near 6lbs you'd know it would have to be all muscle(simplified).

However, my estimate of daily needs is only an estimate +/- a few hundred cals bcz my activity level is not always the same.
If I ever do have several weeks of similar activity I'll let you know, but don't hold your breath.