So we’ve defined resting metabolic rate and what this number means, but let’s take a look at some data regarding the most important components: Organ Tissue, Muscle Mass and Fat Mass. The following info is provided courtesy of Elia in “Energy Metabolism: Tissue Determinants and Cellular Corollaries”.

First, we compare how organ tissue and muscle mass effect Metabolism. Organ tissue (yes, organ tissue) is responsible for 60-70% of our resting metabolic rate (RMR), while amounting to only 5-6% of body weight. Skeletal muscle makes up 16-22% of our RMR, while comprising 30-40% of body weight. Wouldn’t it be nice to add some extra organs and really crank up the metabolism??

Now lets compare Mussel Tissue and Fat Mass effects on Metabolism. Elia discovered that muscle tissue works at a rate of 13 kcals/kg/day, while fat mass comes in somewhere around 4.5 kcals/kg/day. Thus, you can see that muscle burns 3x the amount of calories as fat when at rest. We can see the benefit of increasing muscle tissue and decreasing fat mass, if we want to speed up our metabolism.

In a general sense though, how realistic is this? Gaining a significant amount of muscle tissue takes time and a lot of diligence when it comes to training and nutrition. So if you work hard for months and months, maybe you’ll gain 5-10 lbs (2.2-4.5 kg) of muscle. Doing the math, you’ve then increased your resting metabolism by 13-27 kcals—not a huge gain, but the real benefit comes from moving this newfound muscle.

So here it is in layman’s terms; as you workout and eat better you will increase your muscle mass and decrease your fat mass. Since muscle mass has a higher metabolism you will burn more calories for the same amount of effort. Talk about great motivation…as you workout and eat right you will get better results. If working out were like a job you would get paid more and more for the same effort, alternately if you don’t show up (i.e. sitting on the couch) you would get fired with no pay. So get up and get paid!

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 9th, 2007 at 6:52 pm and is filed under Health.