Knowing your BMR can make it easier for you to gain muscle or lose weight

If you wanna lose body fat, muscle building or simply maintaining your weight, you should know your Basal Metabolic Rate or BMR. Your BMR is the minimum number of calories your body needs to function at rest. Even if you don’t exercise, your body needs it a certain amount of energy to perform basic functions like breathing and regulating your hormone levels.

Unlike many diets out there that apply one eating plan to all users, your BMR is calculated based on several different factors centered on the person, such as your age, gender, current weight, and activity level. Although BMR is not a weight loss tool per se, it can show you information that is specific to you.

Read on to learn more about BMR, how to calculate it, and how it can guide your nutrition and exercise goals.

Continue reading: How Many Calories Should You Burn Each Day to Lose Weight?

What is BMR and how do you find it?

Many people use BMR as a starting point to calculate their daily calorie needs and how best to adjust it to meet their goals. In fact, many macro calculators, like the popular IIFYM, include BMR in their calculations to give you information about your calorie intake and macro needs based on your goals.

A common misconception about BMR is that it’s the amount of calories your body burns at rest, but that’s a different metric – resting metabolic rate, or (RMR). Your BMR is the energy your body needs to perform basic functions, while RMR is the amount of calories your body needs burns in peace. Some people use the measurements interchangeably, but they’re not necessarily the same thing.

BMR calculator

There are many different calculators available online that can calculate your estimated BMR. Note that some of them will ask you to enter your body fat percentage, which many people don’t know. If you don’t, you can make an estimate or use the images provided (as IIFYM does) to guess.

Some of the best BMR calculators:

BMR and TDEE

Once you start finding out about your BMR, you will likely find information about total daily energy expenditure or TDEE as well, as BMR is often calculated first to find TDEE.

Your BMR tells you your calories needs, Taking that number plus the amount you burn off each day with normal activity and exercise gives you your TDEE. So according to IIFYM, TDEE is really the number you use to figure out how to adjust macros or calories for body composition goals.

How to use your BMR to help you lose weight

Losing weight is difficultbut using calculators that take your BMR into account is helpful in taking a more personalized approach to yours calories and Macronutrient requirements. Most macros and BMR-based calculators work by considering your TDEE with your goals.

If you want to lose weight, you must be in a calorie deficit, which means the calculator sets your daily food intake to be fewer calories than you burn. Sometimes when you take an online quiz to find this number you will be asked how fast you want to lose weight. Then the calorie deficit is adjusted accordingly. The faster you want results, the more extreme you need to be to cutting calories. But many experts say that slow and steady is optimal compared to trying to lose a lot of weight quickly.

If your goal is to maintain your weight rather than gain or lose it, then knowing your BMR and TDEE can help you know how many calories you should be consuming each day to maintain your weight. On the other side of weight loss is gaining muscle mass. Again, this requires you to strategize your diet and add calories (probably in the form of protein and carbs) to your day to ensure you can build muscle.

More for your health and well-being

The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions about a medical condition or health goals.