BMR - Basal Metabolic Rate

What is a Basal Metabolic Rate or BMR?

These are calories simply burned by breathing, your body repairing cells, the heart pumping, sleeping and just… living. This is what your body burns to survive. “The amount of fuel used to run the body varies from person to person as does the resting heart rate. The BMR is the amount of energy required by the resting body to stay alive.”
(quoted from The Eat Clean Diet by Tosca Reno www.eatcleandiet.com )

Want to figure out your BMR? Follow the calculator below (taken from the book Making The Cut by Jillian Michaels) 

Women: 655+(4.35xweight in pounds) + (4.7xheight in inches) – (4.7 x age in years) = _______.
Men: 66+(6.23xweight in pounds) + (12.7xheight in inches) – (6.8 x age in years) = _______.



You can also follow this link: bmr calculator, to quickly enter in your numbers and have the program figure it out for you.

This is what you need to eat daily to MAINTAIN the body weight you are at currently. To lose weight, you will need to cut this number and add exercise.

Suggested calorie for weight loss:
Women: non-active between 1000-1200; active 1000-1500.
 Men: non-active between 1200-1500 and active 1200-1800
Teenagers 1200-1800.
(Taken from Calorie King 2010 edition) www.calorieking.com

Any caloric intake over your BMR, is causing your body to store fat. Thus gaining weight every day. So make sure to add exercise and lower your caloric intake to fit your personal BMR numbers.

Suggestion: Follow the Suggested Calories listed above for a few weeks as a test. If no difference is seen you may need to adjust your numbers.

Another aspect of unhealthy eating is not eating enough. Your body will go into a starvation mode and stores extra fat. This could even be someone simply skipping meals all day long and getting the caloric intake all at the last meal. You can't just count calories, but must learn to balance them throughout your day. Eating six well portioned meals throughout the day is the best way to tell your body it will never starve and it's OK to let go of a the pounds.

Watch your calorie intake for one week and remember to journal. Since we are all creatures of habit, we tend to eat the same foods. Keeping track of calories should NOT be difficult. After a while you just know what the calories are of the foods you eat. This will become easier the more you do it, like anything in life. It takes time and practice. There are several free websites to help you find out the calories of certain foods. Watch labels closely as well. And make sure you check the "portion" size on the label. If it says 150 calories for one portion and the bag contains three portions, you are probably eating more calories than you think!

Weight loss and healthy living is a mathematical game.  Calories in, calories out. Get these numbers under control and you WILL find success.