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Comment by paulpauper | Hacker News Reader

muscle burns very little calories, and even pro bodybuilders who have lots of muscle quickly put on fat off-season when not dieting. I don't think this explains it.

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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

I think 100 was just a nice round number to make their point easier to read

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!

You shouldn't go by Strava numbers, they are known to overestimate.

Fair enough but it’s still going to be at the low end of the range 700-1000 range given earlier for 100lbs of muscle gain.

I’m ~75kg. Schwarzenegger was ~120kg in his prime. 45kg difference is (2.2lbs to the kg) 100lbs (differences between UK and USA imperial notwithstanding).

The chances of me going from where I am to a AS physique is zero!

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.

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.

It is essentially impossible to put on muscle at their size without also gaining fat, because they need to be in a large caloric surplus. During the off-season, pro bodybuilders are still training, they just increase their calorie intake significantly. Muscle does burn quite a few calories passively, it's just not nearly enough on a 260lb man to cover 6k-10k calorie intake.

There are multiple factors in maintaining bodyweight: diet, activity level, muscle mass, metabolism, etc. We shouldn't expect a single factor to explain everything, but holding eveything else constant, more muscle and the physical activity necessary to maintain it will burn more calories. It's an important part of maintaining health as we age.

they put on fat because the body fat level they compete at is unsustainable for long periods of time. additionally gaining fat is unavoidable when trying to gain muscle past a certain point.

I would argue they are not "gaining" fat, rather they are "balancing" the amount of fat the body considers normative. Of course you can easily acquire more fat with an inappropriate diet consisting of too much sugar, but a healthy diet will see your body maintain the ratios that are optimal for your current requirements.

It never ceases to amaze me that we think that we know better, and yet the human body, as with other animals etc, have been around for quite some time now. Even if we had all the data from the past that we think is important now, we still wouldn't know better.

There was a post the other day regarding "The prosecutors fallacy" that might fit well with this sort of subject matter.

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