What are the differences between muscle and fat?

Katie Rickel, PhD

Secondly, muscle tissue utilizes more calories than fat tissue. What does that mean? Let's take the two 170-pound women mentioned above. The woman with 25% body fat has more muscle tissue, so her body needs more calories to keep its systems running. Thus, she burns more calories -- even when she is just sitting around -- than does her 45% body fat counterpart. As a result, the leaner woman can actually eat more calories each day and maintain her weight as compared to the woman with more fat tissue.

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