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Calculating Your Basic Metabolic Rate

by Brittany

Once you know and understand your basic metabolic rate, it’s easy to calculate your nutritional strategy. Simply put your metabolic rate is your output for the day and the nutrients you consume are your input. Understanding this, you can now correlate a plan to cater to your individual goals. There are more specific categories of metabolic rate that you can calculate for such as: Basal Metabolic Rate, Resting Metabolic Rate, Thermic Effect of Feeding, Exercise Activity, and Non-exercise Activity Thermogenesis. For now we’ll just discuss the basics but feel free to contact me for more information!

Calculating A Basic Metabolic Rate

I feel the most simple equations to use are the following two formulas:

Harris-Benedict Formula (Revised by Roza and Shizgal in 1984)

METRIC:

Men BMR = 88.362 + (13.397 x weight in kg) + (4.799 x height in cm) – (5.677 x age in years)
Women BMR = 447.593 + (9.247 x weight in kg) + (3.098 x height in cm) – (4.330 x age in years)

IMPERIAL:

Men BMR = 88.362 + (6.251 x weight in lbs) + (12.189 x height in inches) – (5.677 x age in years)
Women BMR = 447.593 + (4.203 x weight in lbs) + (7.869 x height in inches) – (4.330 x age in years)

 

If you have an idea of your body fat percentage then you’re best using the Katch-McArdle Formula.

Katch-McArdle  Formula

Men & Women BMR = 370 + (21.6 x lean mass in kg)
Men & Women BMR = 370 + (9.8 x lean mass in lbs)

Once you have a good idea of your constants you can them add in variables such as exercise, sleep time, eating patterns, and every day activity.

4 thoughts on “Calculating Your Basic Metabolic Rate”

  1. I’ve always just used calculators for this, so it’s neat to see the actual formulas that go into figuring this number out. I always use the Harris Benedict formula for BMR and Activity Level and it’s worked out quite well for me and the people I work with.

    Thanks for the post!
    -Gabe

    Reply
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