Carolyn Hansen, Public Health PDF EBook Download Hot Metabolism EBook PDF Download Free | Page 8

The answer is that muscle tissue is active tissue. It requires fuel to do its
work. Even when it is not flexing it needs to burn fuel to keep warm and
be ever ready to perform when called upon at a moment's notice. Fat
tissue, on the other hand, has a much lower capacity to keep itself warm
and can perform no action that expends energy through moving mass
around (which muscles do wonderfully).
This is why ten pounds of lean muscle tissue is to be far preferred over
ten pounds of fat tissue. The former is going to burn fat all day long,
while the latter just sits there doing nothing.
How much energy does a pound of muscle consume? It is something of
the order of 10 calories per day. Not much, but a great deal more than
can be attributed to a pound of body fat. So an extra ten pounds of lean
muscle tissue will use up about 100 calories per day - equivalent to about
a pound of fat each month.
Moreover, this is the rate at which calories are consumed if you sit on the
couch all day. If you add actual physical activity to your day (always a
great idea) the number of calories each pound of muscle consumes each
day could be anywhere from two to five times as much as if you sat still
all day long.