JJ Virgin4x NYTimes Best Selling Author, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Fitness Hall of Famer

Benefits of building muscle

4 Nov 2025 · 1 min

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0:32

In this YouTube excerpt, JJ Virgin explains how increasing muscle mass influences the body’s physiology. He debunks the common claim that each pound of muscle burns about 100 calories per day, noting the actual figure is closer to 10 calories. He emphasizes that building muscle requires energy, but the larger benefit is that muscle provides a safe storage site for carbohydrates, preventing them from being deposited as visceral fat. This carbohydrate partitioning improves blood‑sugar regulation and insulin sensitivity, leading to a more efficient metabolism. Virgin frames these effects as a systemic transformation—muscle gain reshapes how the body handles energy, glucose, and overall metabolic health.

Chapters

you get bigger, right? Not lifting weights. Muscles, you're making more space, right? Muscle holds everything in tighter. It's going to give you a better metabolism. That is not the big part of it though. Like, people get excited about that. We used to think, oh, a pound of muscle is 100 calories a day. It's not. It's like 10, maybe, you know. But getting that muscle on requires some energy too. But it also gives carbohydrates a place to land that's not in your visceral adipose tissue. It helps you with better blood sugar regulation. It helps with insulin sensitivity. I mean, it's just— it changes everything. Everything. Everything in it.