Getting My RMR Tested Next Week [Forum Archive]

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Getting My RMR Tested Next Week

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Posted by: brazeneye

I am going to have my RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate) tested by this crazy machine that is going to be stuck over my head as I lie down and exhale into it for 15-30 minutes.

Once I know my RMR, how would I calculate how many calories I would need to lose weight?

Do I add on top of my RMR the total amount of calories I burn through exercise?

I am a little confused to how I would figure this out.

Posted by: P-funk

RMR is only going to tell you the amount of calories you would burn if you were to lie in bed and do nothing all day. It is RESTING metabolic rate. That doesn't take into consideration getting up, walking around, eating, going to work, training etc....

Posted by: Plateau_Max

It shouldn't take 15 minutes to get your RMR... it only took 8 for the thing to get mine. I guess it depends on who made the machine.

I would have to say, if you want to go below on cals, you really need to account for daily activity but for the most part your workouts. For days that you don't do much of anything and don't work out, just go 200 or so below your RMR cals and your walking around and what not throughout the day would account for another 3-400 or so. I don't advise going more than 5-600 cals below maintenance, there's not many people who can get away with that without their body going into starvation mode.

One thing you can do that wouldn't take much time, is use a calorie calculator and calculate everything out with plugging in how much light, moderate, and hard work you do on a given day, and when it's over and they show you the overall equation, substitute what they used as the base calorie count with your own known RMR cals... make sense?

Posted by: Emma-Leigh

Bump to this. It is much more variable than that - and there is no one 'formula' you can use that will give you an exact calorie amount you will require.

Basically - TEE (total energy expenditure) = RMR + NEAT + EAT + TEF

Where:
RMR = resting metabolic rate
NEAT = non-exercise associated thermogenesis (eg: the energy you use to talk or watch the dishes or sweep the floor or walk around the office, figiting)
EAT = exercise associated thermogenesis (eg: gym, bike)
TEF = thermic effect of the food you eat

But - even if you did calculate out all of that, when you diet things change and you downregulate a lot of this (NEAT is subconciously decreased in order to conserve energy... RMR also decreases to a variable extent depending on your genetic predisposition).

I would also take the RMR they give you with a 'grain of salt' - it can be influenced by so many things that you have done in the days leading up to the test (like diet, exercise, caffeine, as well as other things like emotional stress, the time of your monthly cycle, temperature, recent infections or illness)....

You would do just as well to simply eat a specific amount for 3-4 weeks (based on your lean mass and activity) and then monitor yourself in the mirror/ via measurements. If nothing changes - you have likely found the calorie level at which you maintain. Then you simply adjust accordingly.

Posted by: Plateau_Max

Yes of course, back to the diet thing having a lot of variables. I'm simply presenting this as an option to get a slightly more accurate measurement than the calculators alone.

All in all it would take weeks to get your calorie output down to a near exact figure that you could really depend on.

I read about RMR, NEAT, EAT, and TEF... I've always been a big advocate on consciously training yourself to have more NEAT every single day, even if it just means standing while you talk on the phone or use the computer for short tasks.

Posted by: brazeneye

According to fitday, on workout days I burn about 585 calories.

So as an example, if my RMR was 1000 calories, combined with my activity (1585), like Plateau Max said, since I want to lose, eat 1385 calories a day?

Posted by: P-funk

Quote:

Originally Posted by brazeneye

According to fitday, on workout days I burn about 585 calories.

So as an example, if my RMR was 1000 calories, combined with my activity (1585), like Plateau Max said, since I want to lose, eat 1385 calories a day?

what are you adding what you burn? Burning means you take away....

1000 - 585

Also, did you read any other posts in this thread? that is your RMR. As emma lied out for you, 24-hour metabolism is made up of several factors, not just RMR. You can't just take one of those factors and base your entire diet around it. You are going to come up with fudged numbers.

Posted by: Dale Mabry

Quote:

Originally Posted by P-funk

Yeah, you are going to need to make some educated guesses on several factors, if they are charging you anything significant, I would scrap it and just use the McArdle formula based on LBM. You are going to have to tweak your intake for a few weeks anyway, why pay money?

Fat loss is not that complicated of a concept. Eat a certain number of calories for a day or , and check your weight, re-tool from there. I highly disagree with the notion that weighing yourself every day is a bad thing, especially during the initial weeks. Finding how your body reacts to certain foods and caloric intakes is integral in speeding up the progress. Now, certain people who weigh themselves every day may lead to dysfunctional eating habits or vice versa, but weighing yourself every day, in and of itself, does not lead to poor eating habits.

Posted by: brazeneye

It's so frustrating. I wish someone would just tell me a number and that would be it for me, haha.

Posted by: P-funk

Quote:

Originally Posted by brazeneye

It's so frustrating. I wish someone would just tell me a number and that would be it for me, haha.

have you honestly read this thread?

It is easy to figure out the numbers.....

make a journal of your meals everyday for the next two weeks (and keep the calorie intake near the same everyday). Chart body weight, circumfrance measurements and skinfolds.

At the end of two weeks, one of three things happened. You either:

1) lost weight
2) gained weight
3) none of the above (stayed the same)

From there you should no what to do. if you don't, then you are hopeless.

Posted by: BoneCrusher

For me it's just easier to get a baseline from the online calculators then work that number depending on whether I want to bulk or cut. Your RMR will change in a month anyway so it's too unreliable to use in any calc's IMHO. I hate to keep posting links all the damn time but facts are facts and the stickies are all inclusive really.

This one is from the stickies. There's another one in the stickies from nutritiondata.com. The BMI from the ND site is shit since it uses the old school of thought ... I'm 230 so I'm a fat ass ... I ignore their BMI index. I cut my times in half since I don't lift everyday ... and there is no option for every other day in the data fields. There is a drop down that includes all the things I do so I get good numbers that actually represent my lifestyle overall. Bottom line is the ND site has shown to be accurate enough for me to work with cut OR bulk.

Both will make this easier for anyone trying to get a grip on their numbers.

Posted by: brazeneye

Quote:

Originally Posted by P-funk

I've been recording what I eat on a daily basis for almost a year and a half using FitDay, and I only ever seem to lose when I consistently eat between 1100-1250 calories a day. I just don't want to accept that as my losing calorie range because everyone is telling me otherwise and that I should be eating more.

Posted by: BoneCrusher

Quote:

Originally Posted by brazeneye

Work harder. Sounds trite ... but that is the bottom line. You're not burning enough calories per day so when you eat more than 1250 you stop losing weight. Increase calorie burn rate with harder work outs. You posted in another thread that the cardio you do was easy. Cardio is not supposed to be easy ... it's supposed to be borderline exhausting. Step it up BE.

Posted by: P-funk

Quote:

Originally Posted by brazeneye

how many calories do you eat right now? How many calories does it take you to maintain your body weight? what is your body weight? body fat? what are your activity levels like? workout?

Posted by: Plateau_Max

1000 would be a pretty low RMR but then I guess I just have a lot of lean mass which makes me burn more at rest. Being in the Air Force I can get my 24 hour RMR done for free whenever I want, the last time I had them take it which was 6 months ago before I went to the middle east, it was 2,053. That meant if I sat around and did nothing, and ate nothing all day I would burn that many calories.

Let's say on a given day I did a 45 minute fun run that burned 810 calories. Well first I would have to divide 2,053 by 24, to find calories per hour, then by 60 to find cals per minute. This way I can subtract 45 minutes worth of at rest cals and replace that number with the 810 cals from the run. Also remember every time you eat you are burning calories to digest the food, it's not much but your RMR is measured when you haven't eaten for several hours because that needs to be cancelled out. So factor in maybe 100 calories of digestion energy. Then take into account how much walking, and other light work you do during the day and how many cals per minute/hour that burns. Once you've done all those calculations, get your final answer then you'll have something in a much CLOSER ballpark to your calorie needs. Remember this is never going to be perfect.

All this sound like a lot of work and a lot of math but it really isn't, and it will help cut some time out of the trial and error of finding out how many calories you need to consume to lose weight.

After that you get into the fun part that Jodi and I, and Pfunk often find ourselves debating with others about - what types of food and when (the intricate balance of glycemic index for carbs, and that of the balance of carbs/protein/fat)... can't wait can you?

Posted by: brazeneye

Quote:

Originally Posted by P-funk

how many calories do you eat right now? How many calories does it take you to maintain your body weight? what is your body weight? body fat? what are your activity levels like? workout?

Right now I eat between 1400-1600 calories, and I am maintaining 150lbs.. but not a very good looking 150lbs. I am not sure what my body fat is.

I am on my feet most of the day, I walk to and from work (just stared, actually), and that is 2 miles there, and then 2 miles back. 4 days a week I do 45 minutes of cardio on a stationary bike, and then I have two days where I concentrate on my legs, back, shoulders and abs, another two is chest, biceps, triceps and abs again (I have my routine posted in my Jawdropper thread).

Posted by: P-funk

sorry, i looked through some of your journal trying to find workouts, but there is so much chit chat (lol) that it was hard to see what is going on.

can you please post your training routine and your cardio routine here?

Posted by: Plateau_Max

Yes I saw at first you had a bit of a sophomoric routine set up and were saying something about revising it, what is your workout routine as of now?

Posted by: mboylan86

Quote:

Originally Posted by Emma-Leigh

Bump to this. It is much more variable than that - and there is no one 'formula' you can use that will give you an exact calorie amount you will require.

Basically - TEE (total energy expenditure) = RMR + NEAT + EAT + TEF

Where:
RMR = resting metabolic rate
NEAT = non-exercise associated thermogenesis (eg: the energy you use to talk or watch the dishes or sweep the floor or walk around the office, figiting)
EAT = exercise associated thermogenesis (eg: gym, bike)
TEF = thermic effect of the food you eat

...and i thought i was the only person who liked to watch dishes!

Posted by: Plateau_Max

Posted by: brazeneye

My RMR is 1386 calories.

Posted by: P-funk

what do you plan to do with that information?

Posted by: brazeneye

Quote:

Originally Posted by P-funk

what do you plan to do with that information?

Well, he said based on my activity, my basal is about 1940 calories.. so in order for me to lose a pound a week, I should be eating about 1400 calories a day.

Posted by: Plateau_Max

I'm really not sure you should be eating roughly 550 cals below maintenance. The body is very sensitive to nutritional "shock" if you will. Ease it down about 200 calories at first, then 100 calories a week after than I would also suggest keeping it around 400-450 below maintenance at the most. The last thing you want is for your body to think it's being starved and start storing everything you eat as fat.

Posted by: P-funk

Quote:

Originally Posted by brazeneye

Well, he said based on my activity, my basal is about 1940 calories.. so in order for me to lose a pound a week, I should be eating about 1400 calories a day.

who is 'he' and why would you start a diet on a 30% caloric deficit? "He" sounds like a moron.

I tell people to start with 10% deficit and optimize your training around that. See where it takes you. Start with the least amount of deficit you can in-order to lose body fat (chart your progress). Otherwise you are going to shoot yourself in the foot and be in a metbolic run down hell.

Posted by: brazeneye

Quote:

Originally Posted by P-funk

Haha, he, is the guy who did the RMR test on me, :P

Posted by: Plateau_Max

Well we basically both said the same thing. Yeah and just 'cause a guy can push a button on the RMR machine doesn't mean you should be taking diet tips from him.

Like we both said, start off with a small deficit and decrease from there. The body is very reactive so you need to ease into changes you make especially with nutritional intake.

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