Losing Weight: Why Knowing Your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) Is Important – Part 2

Here’s a quick formula you can use when calculating your basal metabolic rate.

For women, it will take 655 + (4.3 x whatever your weight is in pounds) + (4.7 x whatever your height is in inches) – (4.7 x whatever your age is in years).

So, for example, for a woman who is 35 years old and is 5’6″ tall and weighs 150 pounds, it would look like this:

655 + (4.3 X 150 = 645) + (4.7 X 67.2 = 316) – (4.7 X 35 = 164.5) = 1451.5, and I would round this up to 1452, this would be the minimum caloric requirement for a woman at full rest with the above stats .

For men, you would add 66 + (6.3 x whatever your weight is in pounds) + (12.9 x your height in inches) – (6.8 x whatever your age is in years) following the same sequence and above formula but using these numbers.
This particular formula can only be applied to adults, for children it will be a little different.

Now we need to incorporate the general physical activities that are carried out on a daily basis. Based on your activity level, I would add the following to your BMR.

For people who are sedentary, it will multiply your BMR X 20 percent

If you are a little more active, it will be your BMR X 30 percent.

For the most moderately active people (you can do light exercise 3-4 days a week), it will be your BMR X 40 percent.

If you are extremely physically active (you can fit in a workout 6-7 days a week), then that will be your BMR X 50 percent.

In very rare cases of those who train like or are professional athletes, it will be their BMR X 60 percent.

Once you find this number, add it to your BMR and you’ll get your daily caloric intake.

For example. Take the BMR of the woman in the example we did earlier, she had a BMR of 1452 and she has a sedentary job and does not exercise, we would do the following:

1452 X 20% = 290.4 and then we add this number to your BMR, which is 1452 + 290.4 = 1742.4

Therefore, you will need about 1,742 calories per day to maintain your current weight. So the trick here is to now limit this amount to, say, 1700 the first two weeks, then 1600 the final week, we can safely reduce the amount down to about 1500 calories per day. Doing this will only force the body to convert fat into calories for the body to burn, leading to weight loss.

I would not recommend limiting the calories for this example below 1500 as this gets too close to your BMR. Doing so may cause more harm than good. To increase the amount of fat your body loses each day, you need to add an exercise routine to your program.