The first step in finding your calorie needs is finding your basal metabolic rate. Your body uses energy and burns calories no matter what you’re doing, even sleeping. The basal metabolic rate – bmr will give you the amount of calories burned in a day with no activity; the number of calories you’d burn if you stayed in bed all day.

As you may have noticed, it becomes harder to eat whatever you want and stay slim as you get older. That’s because your BMR decreases as you age. Likewise, starving yourself of food in hopes of losing weight also decreases your BMR and slows weight loss. The good news is regular exercise can increase your BMR.

The BMR formula uses the variables of height, weight, age and gender to calculate the Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). This is more accurate than calculating calorie needs based on only bodyweight. The only variable it leaves out is the effect lean body mass, ratio of muscle-to-fat a body, has on your metabolism. Lean bodies need more calories than less leaner ones. Therefore, this equation will be very accurate in all but the very muscular (will underestimate calorie needs) and the very fat (will over-estimate calorie needs).

English BMR Formula

Women: BMR = 655 + ( 4.35 x weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 x height in inches ) – ( 4.7 x age in years )

Men: BMR = 66 + ( 6.23 x weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 x height in inches ) – ( 6.8 x age in year )

Metric BMR Formula

Women: BMR = 655 + ( 9.6 x weight in kilos ) + ( 1.8 x height in cm ) – ( 4.7 x age in years )

Men: BMR = 66 + ( 13.7 x weight in kilos ) + ( 5 x height in cm ) – ( 6.8 x age in years )

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