Working out your cardiovascular system boosts your metabolism, so you burn more calories even at rest. Same thing with building muscle. So when you work out, not only are you burning the calories from exercising, but also boosting the rate at which you burn calories even when you're not exercising.

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Originally posted by srussell0018 Working out your cardiovascular system boosts your metabolism, so you burn more calories even at rest. Same thing with building muscle. So when you work out, not only are you burning the calories from exercising, but also boosting the rate at which you burn calories even when you're not exercising.

Makes sense.

The increase in basal metabolic rate from exercise is really not very significant in most cases. The bulk of the difference comes from the calories you burn while actually exercising.

Yeah, building muscle does significantly increase how many calories you burn while resting though.