BMR and Weight Loss

BMR and Weight Loss

The saying goes that fitness is 20% exercise and 80% nutrition; and that’s not wrong. Where people go wrong, however, is exactly what that 80% nutrition means. The key to all of your goals, my sweet, is in your BMR (basal metabolic rate), also known as RMR (resting metabolic rate).

BMR is the BASE amount of calories your body needs to do its basic functions, like making your heart beat, your nails grow, your eyes lubricated. This involves ZERO movement; like if you were to literally lay or sit ALL day. It’s calculated via your height, weight, gender, and age.

There are a ton of online calculators out there that can tell you your BMR. Some may be slightly different than others, so take a few and go with the average.

So why is this the key to all of your goals? Well, without knowing it, you can’t manipulate it, and it’s in the manipulation that you gain or lose weight. Let’s use a fantasy woman named Jennifer (I love J. Aniston ????). Jennifer is 5’5”, 160lbs, 28 years old, and female (obviously).

Based on this, her BMR is approximately 1460 calories (give or take 100 calories based on metabolism). She wants to lose 30 pounds, but she’s not ready to workout just yet. She has an office job, so she’s sedentary for most of the day. She decides to lose weight with diet alone.

How does she do this?

The way to weight loss is through caloric deficit in relation to your BMR. So if Jennifer wants to lose weight, she needs to eat fewer than 1460 calories a day. Remember, she’s not exercising at all and has a fairly sedentary lifestyle. Here’s where many people tend to fail in the nutrition department. In an effort to turbo boost her weight loss, Jennifer slashes her calorie intake to 800 calories a day. Oh sweet Lord, no! Daily caloric intake should not go below 1200 calories a day for women (Of course if you’re super short…like 4’5”…and thin this will be different; remember everything’s dependent on height, weight, gender, and age). By going below this, especially for a period of more than 2 days, will make your body blitzkrieg and think its in a starvation situation. Two things happen when the body goes into survival mode: 1) The metabolism is slowed way down in order to preserve energy stores; 2) Calories entering the body are stored more quickly as fat so the body has more survival reserves for the Holocaust you’re putting it through.

Think of it this way: A homeless person at a buffet VS. a non-homeless person at a

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buffet. The homeless person, not knowing when their next meal is going to come, quickly stuffs extra rolls in their pockets for later use. The non-homeless person, knowing they can eat again whenever they want, keeps nothing extra upon leaving the restaurant.

So what should Jennifer do? If she doesn’t want to exercise, then she can cut her daily calorie intake to 1200, giving her a deficit of 260. Cutting 260 calories a day seven days a week means Jennifer will get a weekly deficit of 1820 calories…..no where near the 3500 it takes to lose just one pound of body fat.At this rate, it will take her almost 2 weeks to shed 1 pound.

Jennifer really doesn’t want to eat less (1200 calories isn’t enough!), so she decides to add exercise into the equation and make sure the 1460 calories she does eat are clean eating choices (quality calories). She works out 5 days a week for one hour and burns 500 calories each day. This act alone gives her a weekly deficit of 2500 calories, which means she will lose weight with exercise alone and no caloric reduction.

Jennifer tracks her calories in MyFitnessPal and finds, however, that her healthy food choices are only totaling 1300 calories, giving her a further deficit of 160 calories a day/1120 a week.

Add all this together, and Jennifer is 3620 calories in the hole a week, which is more than one pound! (not including the added muscle mass and increased metabolism exercise gives). At this rate, she will lose 30 pounds in about 29 weeks.

What Jennifer has to keep in mind, and what many people don’t realize, is that you have to adjust things as you lose weight. If Jennifer goes from 160 pounds to 130 pounds, her BMR is changing from 1460 to 1320…..yes, she needs less food. This is why people have a harder time the closer they get to their goal weight. Keep reevaluating yourself every two to four weeks to make sure you’re hitting your target numbers.

Author: fitnetix

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