We’ve all heard the adage that a pound of fat is the equivalent of 3500 calories.
We’ve also heard that muscle is more calorically dense than fat.
My question is this: If a pound of muscle and a pound of fat weigh exactly the same, how many calories are in a pound of muscle?
Muscle is more dense than fat, that is not the same as calorically dense.
So one pound of muscle is also 3500 calories?
Fat=9 cals per gramn
Protein= 4 cals per gram.
It would depend on the amount of water, glycogen, etc. currently in the muscle tissue.
Just out of curiosity, what do you want to use this information for? You going to cut somebody’s bicep out to help fill your diet? LOL, sorry, I’m just curious.
[quote]Brant_Drake wrote:
Fat=9 cals per gramn
Protein= 4 cals per gram.
[/quote]
that’s in terms of food, then again, I guess we could be food 
There are about 450 grams in an lb.
Fat = 9 kcals a gram
Protein = 4 kcals a gram
One lb of fat = about 4050 kcals
One lb of pure muscle = 1800 kcals
That is if the muscle has no glycogen and minimal water.
The fat kcals are different than the 3500 because there is more to storing body fat than just fat. But an lb of animal fat contains over 4000 kcals and a lb of pure muscle is 1800 kcals if the muscle didn’t have excess water and contained no fat.
I hope that helps.
Also a lb of muscle would take up less volume than an lb of fat would.
Muscle is mostly water.
Glycogen will depend, being zero if the animal in question is dead.
1lb or protein might be 1800kcal, but not 1lb of muscle.
1lb of pure fat/oil (from whatever source)is over 4000kcal, but animal fat contains water too.
[quote]jehovasfitness wrote:
Brant_Drake wrote:
Fat=9 cals per gramn
Protein= 4 cals per gram.
that’s in terms of food, then again, I guess we could be food :D[/quote]
That’s my take. Biologically we’re almost identical to animals we eat. It’s not like “people meat” is vastly different from “cow meat.”
[quote]tico1028 wrote:
Just out of curiosity, what do you want to use this information for? You going to cut somebody’s bicep out to help fill your diet? LOL, sorry, I’m just curious.[/quote]
I was curious. I always, always, always hear/read that in order to lose a pound of fat, you need to create a deficit of 3500 calories, but never hear how many calories you need to create a pound of muscle.
Thanks for all the replies so far!
600
I can look up the source, but I got that from Tom Venuto.
Makes an interesting statement about how much you actually need to eat to gain a pound of muscle, doesn’t it.
Here ya go…
3500 Calories: A Pound of Fat or Six Pounds Of Muscle?
Most fitness conscious people know that there are 3,500 calories in a pound of fat, so if you create a deficit of 3500 calories in a week, you lose a pound of weight. If you create a deficit of 7000 calories in a week, you lose two pounds a week, and so on. Right? Well, not so fast…
Dr. Kevin Hall, an investigator at the National Institute of Health has done some interesting research about the mechanisms regulating human body weight. He recently published a new paper in the International Journal of Obesity that throws a wrench in works of the “3500 calories to lose a pound” idea…
Some of the equations in his paper made my head hurt, but despite the complex math he used to come to his conclusions, his article clearly prompts the question, “3500 calories to lose a pound of WHAT?” His paper also contained a lot of simple and practical tips you can use to properly balance your caloric intake with output, fine tune your calorie deficit and help you retain more muscle when you diet.
Below, I’ve distilled some of the information into a simple bullet-point summary that any non-scientist can understand. Then I wrap up with my interpretation of how you can apply this in your own fat loss program:
Calculating the calories required to lose a pound and fine-tuning your caloric deficit
3500 calories to lose a pound has always been the rule of thumb. However, this 3500 calories figure goes back to research which assumed that all the weight lost would be adipose tissue (which would be ideal, of course).
But as we all know (unfortunately), lean body mass is lost along with body fat, which would indicate that the 3500 calorie figure could be an oversimplification.
The amount of lean body mass lost is based on initial body fat level and size of the calorie deficit
Lean people tend to lose more lean body mass and retain more fat.
Fat people tend to lose more body fat and retain more lean tissue (revealing why obese people can tolerate aggressive low calorie diets better than already lean people)
Very aggressive low calorie diets tend to erode lean body mass to a greater degree than more conservative diets.
whether the weight loss is lean or fat gives you the real answer of what is the required energy deficit per unit of weight loss
The metabolizable energy in fat is different than the metabolizable energy in muscle tissue. A pound of muscle is not 3500 calories. A pound of muscle yields about 600 calories. �?� If you lose lean body mass, then you lose more weight than if you lose fat.
If you create a 3500 calorie deficit in one week and you lose 100% body fat, you will lose one pound. �?�
But if you create a 3500 calorie weekly deficit and as a result of that deficit, lose 100% muscle, you would lose almost 6 pounds of body weight! (of course, if you manage to lose 100% muscle, you will be forced to wear the Dieter’s Dunce cap)
If you have a high initial body fat percentage, then you are going to lose more fat relative to lean, so you may need a larger deficit to lose the same amount of weight as compared to a lean person
Creating a calorie deficit once at the beginning of a diet and maintaining that same caloric intake for the duration of the diet after major weight loss fails to account for how your body decreases energy expenditure with reduced body weight
Weight loss typically slows down over time for a prescribed constant diet (the “plateau”). This is either due to the decreased metabolism mentioned above, or a relaxing of the diet compliance, or both (most people just can’t hack aggressive calorie reductions for long)
Progressive resistance training and or high protein diets can modify the proportion of weight lost from body fat versus lean tissue (which is why weight training and sufficient protein while on calorie restricted diets are absolute musts!)
So, based on this info, should you throw out the old calorie formulas?
Well, not necessarily. You can still use the standard calorie formulas to figure out how much you should eat, and you can use a 500-1000 calorie per day deficit (below maintenance) as a generic guideline to figure where to set your calories to lose one or two pounds per week respectively (at least that works “on paper” anyway).
Even better however, you could use this info to fine tune your caloric deficit using a percentage method and also base your deficit on your starting body fat level, to get a much more personalized and effective approach:
15-20% below maintenance calories = conservative deficit
20-25% below maintenance calories = moderate deficit
25-30% below maintenance calories = aggressive deficit
31-40% below maintenance calories = very aggressive deficit (risky)
50%+ below maintenance calories = semi starvation/starvation (potentially dangerous and unhealthy)
(Note: According to exercise physiologists Katch & Mcardle, the average female between the ages of 23 and 50 has a maintenance level of about 2000-2100 calories per day and the average male about 2700-2900 calories per day)
Usually, we would suggest starting with a conservative deficit of around 15-20% below maintenance. Based on this research, however, we see that there can be a big difference between lean and overweight people in how many calories they can or should cut.
If you have very high body fat to begin with, the typical rule of thumb on calorie deficits may underestimate the deficit required to lose a pound. It may also be too conservative, and you can probably use a more aggressive deficit safely without as much worry about muscle loss or metabolic slowdown.
If you are extremely lean, like a bodybuilder trying to get ready for competition, you would want to be very cautious about using aggressive calorie deficits. You’d be better off keeping the deficit conservative and starting your diet/cutting phase earlier to allow for a slow, but safe rate of fat loss, with maximum retention of muscle tissue.
The bottom line is that it’s not quite so simple as 3,500 calories being the deficit to lose a pound. Like lots of other things in nutrition that vary from person to person, the ideal amount of calories to cut “depends”…
References:
Forbes GB. Body fat content influences the body composition response to nutrition and exercise. Ann NY Acad Sci. 904: 359-365. 2000
Hall, KD., What is the required energy deficit per unit of weight loss? Int J Obesity. 2007 Epub ahead of print.
McArdle WD. Exercise physiology: Energy, Nutrition, and Human performance. 4td ed. Williams & Wilkins. 1996.
Wishnofsky M. Caloric equivalents of gained or lost weight. Am J Clin Nutr. 6: 542-546.
Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, an NSCA-certified personal trainer, certified strength & conditioning specialist (CSCS), and author of the #1 best selling diet e-book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle. Tom teaches you how to lose fat without drugs or supplements using the little-known secrets of the world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models
Holy crap.
Thanks for that. That is more than I was ever expecting. And damn fast, too.
[quote]Zagman wrote:
There are about 450 grams in an lb.
Fat = 9 kcals a gram
Protein = 4 kcals a gram
One lb of fat = about 4050 kcals
One lb of pure muscle = 1800 kcals
That is if the muscle has no glycogen and minimal water.
water and contained no fat.
I hope that helps.
[/quote]
I think a reasonable approximation would be to use the values for lean, raw beef (its muscle, as I said the beef is lean so approximates to a lean human. BTW all muscle has water and fat included)
raw lean beef:
1lb = 453.597g, = 558Cal, =92g protein, =21g fat
I hope that answers the question, cannibal.
You know you all have thought that before.
(And yes, it helped. Thanks!)
The Venuto article is pure gold.