BMR Clarification from show #1

October 15, 2007 by Jeff Ainslie
Filed under: Calories, Fat Loss 

In the first Podcast, we got a little ahead of ourselves and made some comments that were not very clear - I guess that is the nature of recording live. Here is a clarification of how your Basal Metabolic Rate works with Fat Loss.

Your BMR is the amount of calories that your body burns without doing any physical activity. This is influenced by your total weight and the total amount of muscle that you have. A person who has more muscle will burn more calories naturally than a person with less muscle at the same weight.

If you put on a pound of muscle, you can eat up to 50 more calories per day without gaining weight. Muscle is very metabolically active and burns calories all day long. This doesn’t work if you put on a pound of fat, because fat just sits there. If you put on a pound of fat, you don’t get to eat more food.

How does BMR and Fat Loss and Muscle Loss all relate?

This is a simple rule of thumb:

When you are losing weight, you will lose a combination of fat and muscle. If you are on a reasonable diet where your daily caloric intake is greater than your BMR, you will lose mostly fat. If you are on a diet where you are eating less than your BMR, you will be losing fat, BUT you will also be losing a higher percentage of muscle as well.

On a very severe diet, you may lose 50% fat and 50% muscle weight! If you have ever heard people say that dieting can destroy your metabolism, this is why. When you lose muscle, your BMR goes down, and you are forced to eat less and less because your body naturally burns less and less. It is a lose-lose situation.

Muscle is the furnace that drives your metabolism. Keep your muscle at all costs!

Your goal should be to lose Fat, not just weight.

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Comments

2 Comments on BMR Clarification from show #1

  1. Russ Turley on Tue, 16th Oct 2007 1:08 pm

    2. What percentage of the BMR calorie count should be protein, carbs, and fat? Is there a minimum number of calories from protein that will help in not losing muscle mass?

  2. Jeff The Jock on Tue, 16th Oct 2007 2:04 pm

    3. A good rule of thumb would be to make sure that every meal has some lean protein in it and some “good” carbs. Proteins are the building blocks of muscle and is used to not only grow muscles, but repair them. Protein only stays in your body for about 3 hours after eating, so you need to keep replenishing it each meal. Bodybuilders are very concerned about losing any muscle and the recommendation for a bodybuilder is to eat one gram of protein for each pound of bodyweight.

    The real difference between all of the diet plans out there is the ratio of the recommended macronutrients. The starting point for a “reasonable healthy diet” would be around 50% Carbs, 30% Protein and 20% Fat. You would follow this and see how you do and how you feel. Some people will naturally feel better with more protein and some will desire more carbs.

    Here is a link to an aritcle that I wrote that will give everyone some more details:
    http://jeffthejock.wordpress.com/about/nutrition/

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