The best way to assess metabolic rate at He's Fit

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The best way to assess metabolic rate

Posted October 29, 2007 at 09:10 AM by Mark Scott

Section: His Fitness, Cardio Training, Alt. Therapies, His Nutrition, Healthy Eating

man running Often times, when a dieter is trying to figure out how many calories they should be taking in on a daily basis they will go plug some numbers into a fancy formula they found online.

There are a variety of different formulas out there, some are definitely better than others. Usually any type of formula that takes into account your lean weight is going to be slightly more accurate than one that doesn’t since fat mass really does not burn many calories at all.

So say you had two 150 pound people, one is at 10% body fat and the other is at 35%. Because this 10% person has 135 pounds of lean body tissue and the other only has 97.5, the differences in how much they will be required to eat to maintain their weight will be quite significant.

Furthermore, when using these calculations you always must remember that they are just starting points. Everyone is going to have a slightly different metabolic rate depending on this such as genetics, environmental factors, exercise type being performed and so on. Additionally, if you are just coming off a period of a reduced calorie intake (severe dieting), your metabolic rate is likely to be a good 10-15% lower than what it usually would because of this (this is reversible over time however once you are back on a more appropriate nutritional intake).

The best way to assess your metabolic rate is to perform one of these equations and then track calories in real life. So if the number the formula spits out is 1500 calories, eat 1500 calories per day for a few weeks and see what your weight does. If it goes down then this is obviously too low of an intake for you. If on the other hand it goes up, you might be one of those people who unfortunately does have a slower metabolism and will be required to eat slightly less food.

Keep in mind too that the metabolism will change as you lose or gain weight, depending on what your current goal is. For this reason it’s important to reassess your intake every so often to make sure you are staying on top of things.

So as with many other things in health and fitness, measure real world results. It’s always going to be about figuring what works best for you, not someone else.