Understanding Your Basal Metabolism Rate

Understanding your basal metabolism rate, and knowing what your unique rate is, can be useful in helping you overcome obesity.

This awareness helps you better plan your calorie structure.

Your basal metabolism rate is the amount of energy (calories) your body needs at rest – or the amount needed to simply function.

In other words, it is the amount of energy your body needs for your:

• Heart to pump blood through your body
• Lungs to process oxygen
• Brain to transmit messages etc.

It is affected by a number of factors that you have no control over such as:

• Age
• Gender and
• Family history.

Men, for example, tend to have greater muscle mass and a lower body fat percentage, so their basal metabolism rate is typically higher.

There are some things you can do, however, that can change your basal rate. These include:

• How and what you eat
• The amount of lean muscle mass you have and
• Your activity level.

Lean muscle requires more energy to maintain than fat, so if you have a great deal of lean muscle your body will require more calories.

Why would you want to change your basal rate?

Well, if you can increase it, thus increasing the amount of calories your body needs to simply exist, it may help you in your battle to overcome obesity.

Say your basal rate shows that you need 1,700 calories a day to simply exist.

This means that if you eat exactly 1,700 calories a day you will maintain your current weight.

If you eat more than that you will gain weight, less than that and you will lose weight.

If you were to eat 1,500 calories a day, you would “save” 200 calories a day, and in 17 and a half days you will have lost one pound.

What would happen if you could increase your basal rate so that you needed 2,000 calories a day to exist, and still ate 1,500 calories a day?

Because you would be “saving” 500 calories a day, instead of 200, it would take you just seven days to lose a pound.

Figure in what exercise can do with regard to burning more calories, and if you can increase your basal rate and step up your level of exercise at the same time, you could be well on your way to losing weight!

Typically women need 2,000-2,100 calories a day to maintain their body, while men need 2,700-2,900.

The more active you are, the higher this number will be.

For example:

• If you are a man training twice a day for a marathon, your body will need much more than 2,800 calories to maintain itself.

Once you know your basal rate – or at least a good estimate – it will help you determine:

• How much you need to limit calories in your diet and
• How many calories you should burn through exercise.

To overcome obesity you need to consume fewer calories than you burn.

If you are consuming more calories than your basal metabolism rate reflects, then you need to be sure you are exercising enough to burn enough calories to lose weight.

Basal metabolism rate is a great starting point for developing a healthy plan for weight loss.

Here are some more tips to keep you on the right track.

• Incorporate a proven, complete nutritional program into your daily life.
• Enhance your nutritional program with a complete mutivitamin supplement because no nutritional program is perfect.
• Use a behavior modification and motivational program that will help you stay on track with your nutritional plan.
• Exercise at home with your own:
  Treadmill

  Stairstepper

  Exercise bike

  Elliptical trainer

  Hand weights or

  An aerobic video.

• See what kinds of weight loss aids your health insurance covers such as:
  Hypnotism

  Gym membership discounts

  Nutritional counseling.

Understanding basal metabolism rate can get you on the road to overcoming obesity in no time.

So, go ahead. Use the tips above to start losing weight today.

I highly recommend it!