Have you ever wondered how many calories you burn each day? Tracking calories is great, but… If you don’t know how many calories you’re burning, how will you know if you’re getting too few, just enough, or too many?
The first issue that needs to be addressed is how many calories it takes to simply keep you alive. This value is known as your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR). Unfortunately, accurate estimation of your RMR requires some fairly advanced laboratory procedures.
Fortunately, it’s easy enough to produce a rough estimate using an estimation equation developed by Mifflin and colleagues back in 1990. I should note here that I was first turned on to this info by a great post over at GetFitSlowly.
As it turns out, the equation differs slightly for men and women. And guess what, guys? We come out on top, with a slightly higher RMR for a given height/weight.
How many calories do you burn?
If you’re a man…
For men, the equation is:
RMR = (10 x weight) + (6.25 x height) – (5 x age) + 5
Where your weight is expressed in kg, your height is in cm, and your age is in years.
If you’re a woman…
For women, the equation is:
RMR = (10 x weight) + (6.25 x height) – (5 x age) – 161
And all of the variables are defined as above.
Converting values
A handy trick for easily converting from English to Metric (or vice versa) is to run a Google search for something like: 240 pounds in kg. Submit your search and the answer (roughly 108.9 kg) will show up at the top of the results page.
It works the same way for height or, indeed, just about anything else — including currency conversions. Check it out… As of this writing, 1 USD is worth 12.49 Pesos.
Accounting for activity
Of course, if you do anything more than lie perfectly still and just stay alive, you’ll burn more calories. You can fine-tune your estimate by applying a daily activity multiplier ranging from 1.2 for sedentary (little or no exercise) to 1.9 for extremely active (hard exercise and a physical job).
Moderate activity (i.e., “moderate” exercise 3-5 days/week), where I suspect many of us fall, has an activity multiplier of 1.55 x RMR.
What’s your RMR?
A quick run through the equations reveals my RMR (without any multiplier) to be 2140 calories/day. How about you?
Something interesting that you might have noticed is that your RMR decreases with body weight. This means that you have to cut even more calories to continue losing weight as you approach goal weight.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
My RMR is right around 1900 calories, only about 100 calories more than other methods I’ve used to calculate an estimate. I’d say I burn in the mid/high 2000s on a daily basis normally, low 3000s when training for a goal race, and in the 5000-7000 calorie range on race day sometimes.
My RMR is also about 1900…down from 2700 when I started getting fit!
Mine is 1677. Thankfully weight has never been an issue for me. Just exercising now to make sure my overall health stays good.