Why you want to preserve and build muscle

September 5, 9:54 AMNutrition ExaminerCarol Bardelli

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Build more muscle and you'll burn more fat.

Many people view their muscles as inert things that take care of themselves.  The masses never give much thought to their muscle mass. They ignore taking care to protect their muscles, take them for granted, and expect them to remain intact, remain strong, and perform the same for life. This isn’t the case, especially if you’re sedentary.

Here are a few great reasons why preserving and building muscle with resistance or weight training should be everyone’s fitness goal:

1. Muscle is your engine. Muscle burns fat, about 50 calories a day per pound of muscle.
A pound of fat burns about 3 calories a day. 

2. The more muscle you have the more calories you burn.  While a pound of fat requires around 3-5 calories to maintain, a pound muscle requires 35-50 calories a day. This means your metabolism or engine will be faster and demand more gas or “food” just sitting still.

3. A pound of muscle takes up less space in your body than a pound of fat. You can weigh more on the scale while taking up less space physically and wear smaller sizes. Muscle is sleek and attractive while fat is jiggles and too much is unattractive.

4. Muscle makes you strong, functionally fit, increases your endurance, and improves physical performance in all areas of life, not just athletics.

5. Studies show fat (although not a big calorie burning engine) is metabolically active.  Fat makes good and bad hormones and other chemicals that affect your health.  The greater amount of fat you have on your body, the more nasty hormones your body will produce.  And that’s the last thing anyone wants.

Fat is loaded with cells called macrophage. These cells are a double edged sword because they produce substances that cause inflammation.   Science has linked this inflammation to heart disease, the number one killer of Americans.. These same  fat cells also produce hormones that affect our bodies sensitivity to insulin. This makes us much more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes.

The bottom line is that the more muscle you have, the more calories you’ll burn and the less body fat you will have.  Maintaining the mucsle you have and building new muscle could literally save your life.

Here’s the bad news. It is a fact of life that you will lose muscle mass starting around 30 years old and averaging 5 pounds of loss per decade without actively pursuing resistance training to counteract this phenomenon. 

“So what?” you may say, “I’m not an athlete and I have a desk job.” That mere 5 pounds a decade of muscle loss means you’ll burn approximately 250 calories less per day.  By the time you turn 60 that can add up to 750 calories a day you are no longer burning.  If you’re still eating the same amount of food – or even less than you used to - your body will turn any extra calories into fat and your sedentary lifestyle will be a recipe for obesity.

An earlier version of this article is available at my blog “Kudos For Balanced Fitness and Lifestyle” and includes links to topics related to muscle, its functions, the perils of muscle loss, and the benefits maintaining and building muscle.  If you’re interested in why you should strive to preserve and build muscle mass you can start to educate yourself with that information.