Do you know what BMR is or what it stands for? If not, it’s ok. Most people don’t! BMR stands for “Basal Metabolic Rate.” Your basal metabolic rate is how many calories your body burns at rest to maintain your current state. In other words, some might call it their “couch potato calories.” This is because that is the number of calories that your body would need to be able to function properly at total rest; if you literally never got out of bed for the whole day. Your BMR is responsible for approximately 60% to 70% of the total number of calories you burn in a day.

Of course, daily, you are moving around, walking, participating in physical activity and those account in the other 30-40% of calories that you would need. Your BMR is higher or lower depending on how many pounds of muscle mass you have. That is why men tend to have higher BMR’s and can eat more food because they naturally just have more muscle mass.

I’m going to give you an example of myself to better explain how this works. My BMR is around 1250 calories and I have about 50 pounds of muscle mass. If I wanted my BMR to increase, I would need to continue resistance and strength training to gain more muscle mass. The higher your muscle mass, the higher your BMR. It is as simple as that.

Now, you must count in your activity level. I tend to workout 5-6 days a week and probably burn around 400 calories just in my workouts. So, I would have to add those calories to my BMR and then my daily intake should be around 1750 calories a day. If I don’t get those proper calories, I will lose muscle mass because I wouldn’t have the proper amount of nutrients to maintain where I am at. On the other hand, if I had goals of gaining weight. I would have to add in extra calories on top of the BMR+ Activity level to have a surplus in calories.

One pound is equivalent to 3,500 calories. So, depending on your goals, you can either negate or add calories per day to reach where you want to be. If you have goals of losing one pound of week, you would need to negate your regular caloric intake by 500 calories per day.

The most accurate calculation of your BMR is through the proper testing and equipment like an InBody machine, however if you don’t have that resource, there is an equation you can do to give you a good idea of where you stand.

It is the Harris-Benedict Equation and it is as follows:

For Men: BMR = 66 + ( 6.2 × weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 × height in inches ) – ( 6.76 × age in years )

For Women: BMR = 655.1 + ( 4.35 × weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 × height in inches ) - ( 4.7 × age in years )