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Comment by logicchains

1 year ago

Muscle 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.

Putting 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.

  • even with steroids virtually impossible. the heaviest pro bodybuilders ever peak at around 270-290 lbs

Someone in their first year of consistent serious training can realistically put on 15 pounds of muscle. The year after that it drops to 5 pounds.

That 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 :)

  • That seems high. Someone your weight would generally only burn about 750 kcal on that workout.

    • 750 kcals is insanely high for a 10k training run. If you hold your HR to Z2, 620-640 kcals would be my ballpark expectation.

    • It’s what Strava says I’m burning so I can only go by that. 750 would still be above the low end of the range quoted by the OP.

      The amount of extra food I needed to start eating!

      2 replies →

Do you have a source? I would expect the first pounds of muscle to affect metabolism more than the 100th pound, but that's my immediate intuituion.