Understanding BMR: The Magic Number for Weight Loss
Have you noticed that each year it costs you more to eat what you usually do without gaining weight? This is because your basal metabolic rate (BMR) decreases as you age. And to make matters worse, depriving yourself of food lowers your BMR by sabotaging your weight loss plans. This article will explain what BMR is, how to calculate it, and how to put this information to work to help you manage your weight at any age.
WHAT IS BRM?
Your BMR is your magic number when it comes to losing weight. This number represents the number of calories your body needs to function at its most basic level. is the number of calories you would burn if you were lying in bed all day. Each person has a different metabolism and therefore has a different number of calories that they can consume and still lose weight. By using the formula outlined below, you will be able to calculate your BMR and get an accurate idea of how many calories you should be consuming in a day.
Because calories count in weight loss, the trick is to reduce the number of calories you consume and increase the number you burn through activity to create a sufficient deficit for weight loss. However, you can get into trouble if you don’t eat enough calories. Your body will go into starvation mode, causing your metabolism to slow down.
Make sure you consume enough to give yourself the energy to exercise, live your best life, and/or be productive at work. Remember, you want to create a deficit, not go into starvation mode.
HOW TO CALCULATE YOUR BMR
The BMR calculation is different for men and women and takes into account height, weight, age and gender, so you need to give or take 100 calories.
Women: BMR = 655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) – (4.7 x age in years)
Men: BMR = 66 + (6.23 x weight in pounds) + (12.7 x height in inches) – (6.8 x age in years)
Let’s see an example. Let’s say we want to know what the BMR is for a woman who is 5 feet 3 inches (63 inches), 158 lbs. and she is 48 years old. The formula looks like this:
BMR = 655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) – (4.7 x age in years)
BMR = 655 + (4.35 x 158) + (4.7 x 63) – (4.7 x 48) = 1412.8
BMR 1,412.8 represents the number of calories, plus or minus 100 calories, that this woman burns while at rest during a 24-hour period. That means she must eat about 1,413 calories per day to maintain her weight. Remember this number. We will need it later to calculate her daily calorie intake.
INCREASE YOUR HEAT DEFICIT BY BURNING CALORIES
Another reason to exercise! When we add exercise to our daily routine, we burn additional calories. The longer and harder we exercise, the more calories we burn. Having an active job, cleaning the house, or mowing the lawn burns calories! The only way to accurately track how many calories you burn throughout the day and while exercising is to use a heart rate monitor like the one many athletes use when exercising, such as a Polar Fitness Watch. You can calculate overall calorie burn, but variable factors include workout intensity, age, gender, weight, and fitness level. Here are some general guidelines for an hour of training:
- Low intensity aerobics = 400 calories
- High intensity aerobics = 600 calories
- Walking = 300 calories
- Running = 1000 calories
- Climb stairs = 700 calories
- Hiking = 500 calories.
These are rough estimates, so please use them as such. The most important information to be gleaned from these estimates is that it becomes very obvious that including exercise in your routine is key to achieving your caloric deficit.
HOW MANY CALORIES ARE IN A POUND OF FAT?
One pound of fat equals 3,500 calories. To lose a pound of fat, you must create a balance between activity (calorie burning) and food (calorie intake) to match a 3,500 calorie deficit. Sound overwhelming? If you want to lose a pound a week, you need to create a deficit of 500 calories a day for seven days. That sounds more achievable, right?
Now, let’s apply math to a goal. Let’s use the same woman we used as an example before. She wants to lose 15 pounds and sets a goal of doing it in 3 weeks. To achieve a weight loss of 5 pounds per week, we must first multiply the number of calories in one pound of fat by the number of pounds to lose per week.
(5 pounds to lose x 3,500 calories from fat = 17,500 calories to burn per week or 2,500 per day)
Subtract your daily BMR from the daily calories needed to burn.
(2,500 calories – 1,412.8 BMR = 1,087.2 calorie deficit per day)
So if you eat exactly your BMR calories (1412.8), you’ll need to burn 1087.2 calories through activity. If you eat 200 fewer calories per day, you need to burn 200 fewer calories through activity. If you do this for 3 weeks, you will lose 15 pounds of fat. You can see how important knowing your BMR is to planning for weight management success. Be realistic in the number of calories you plan to burn through exercise to ensure you’re eating the right amount.
THERE IS NO MAGIC IN WEIGHT LOSS
it’s science – It’s not a fancy diet with a magic potion. A very important component to keep in mind when applying this scientific fact is that lean muscle mass weighs more than fat.
The reason it’s so imperative to remember this is that as you exercise, you’ll gain lean muscle mass, and as you continue to create a calorie deficit, you’ll lose fat. The scale, however, does not distinguish between the two.
Don’t be discouraged if the scale doesn’t display the number you want or expect. You must remember that if you follow the formula you are losing kilos of fat. The reward of trading fat for lean muscle mass is that you will decrease in size because lean muscle is more compact than fat, so your actual size will decrease.
Another benefit of gaining lean muscle mass is that metabolically this type of tissue requires more energy, so your BMR actually increases as a result of having more lean muscle mass. Burning more calories at rest doesn’t sound too bad, does it?
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
Now that you have the tools to figure out exactly how to achieve your weight loss goal, put it to work. Start the process. Put your own numbers in the formulas. Know what your BMR is so your weight loss journey is no longer a guessing game.
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