Hm, You seem to be right!

I just spent the last several minutes reading reputable sources and they all seem to agree with you. In fact, they indicate a pound of muscle burns more like 6 calories.

You win, Internet.

It's building the muscle that takes calories.

And then using them regularly to do a lot of work. There's no free lunch when it comes to moving something heavy from point A to point B.

Building muscle can burn crazy calories though. It's quite common for normal men (I'm not talking about pro athletes, just ordinary guys) on strength training programs to add 500-1000 calories/day to their diet, and not gain fat. I wish the article would have mentioned this, because it only seems to talk about cardio exercise, which indeed makes it difficult to burn a lot of calories.

Hogwash. Strength training does not increase caloric burn by 500, much less 1000 calories per day. The purpose for adding calories while strength training is to "bulk", ie gain fat + build muscle at an efficient rate. This is generally between 100-325 calories over your TDEE, or breakeven point of caloric burn.

Not only that, but aerobic exercise also works better because your cells will burn energy for longer after working out - so I guess building muscle and getting it to burn more energy by running is the most efficient combination

Anaerobic exercise increases post-exercise oxygen consumption more than aerobic exercise.

Where are you getting 10 calories per day per pound?

I find that surprisingly low, and that's even if we're talking 100% sedentary here.

This blog post cites 2 sources on the 6-10 calories per pound, haven't read through it myself though.

http://www.builtlean.com/2013/04/16/muscle-burn-calories/