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One Body Health

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What's Your Burn Rate?

If you don't know, then your personal fitness or weight loss plan may not be personal enough.

Until recently, there has not been an easy or economical way to measure metabolism or your burn rate also referred to as RMR (resting metabolic rate). People have relied on predictive equations which are inaccurate for many, particularly those on both ends of the energy balance equation. For example those who participate in strength training exercise programs (high end), or those individuals that have dieted on and off for most of their lives (low end)and have followed the typical "Yo-Yo" effect of cycling weight loss with repeated weight gain.

The Reason:
Lean muscle burns significantly more calories than fat mass and predictive equations can't account for changes in metabolism due to improvements in overall body composition. These predictive equations therefore become quite innaccurate and too low for people on the high end of the energy balance scale, and unfortunately too high for those individuals on the low end of the scale. As you may have heard, the fatal flaw of most low calorie diets is that you end up sacrificing lean muscle. Therefore, during the next round of dieting you have actually negatively effected your body composition (lost lean and gained fat) so your dieting efforts literally ruin you with an even lower RMR due to loss of energy revving muscle.

Oxygen: The univeral fuel of metabolism

Our bodies use oxygen to metabolize food. So, measuring how much oxygen your body consumes tells you exactly how many calories your body burns at rest each day.

Everyone's metabolism or burn rate is unique to them- a one size fits all approach to weight loss and fitness does not work for most individuals. Take the study outlined in the chart here as an example. You can see that subjects of the same height, weight, age and gender should have had the same burn rate when using the old predictive equation, correct? Well, not exactly. When this group of women were actually measured, their real burn rates were dramatically different. This helps to explain why you can follow the same exercise routine and eat the same foods as your friend, but have dramatically different results. This is also why trying to figure out a weight loss plan based on using powders, potions, diets in a can, as well as points and prepackaged meals based upon outdated "Ideal" height/weight charts will not work in the long run to produce lasting change.

What works?

Improving your metabolism or at least doing your best to maintain a high burn rate as you age is the best long term predictor of weight management success.

Balancing diet with exercise, both cardiovascular and resistance training, is the most effective way to reach your weight management goals.

Resistance training at the correct intensity increases your lean muscle mass and increases your resting metabolic rate.

Cardiovascular training burns extra calories and contributes to your total calorie expenditure

Get plenty of rest, build in time in your day to have fun, and drink plenty of pure water.

Educate yourself and your family about the benefits of healthy eating and and using more whole food nutrition. While supplements may be able to help with some of the nutrients you need they are in no way a replacement for the energy and complex nutrient combinations found in whole foods.

Think you are already nutrition savvy? Put your knowledge to the test with our Nutrition IQ Test

What doesn't work?

Avoid all over the counter supplements touted to boost your metabolism. You simply can't buy a pill solution to your sluggish metabolism.

Avoid packaged, processed foods or weight loss solutions that require you to purchase their own brand of foods in a box. When you break down the nutrition in these foods you'll see they fall short for healthy eating.* The sulfites, sodium, nitrites, and trans fats quarantee a long shelf life, but do nothing to improve yours!

Guessing
*Take a free week tour of our meal planning system,enter your current meals on these packaged programs and see the results- you'll be shocked!!

Stop Guessing....Start Managing

Weight management success is a simple matter of balancing the calories you eat with the calories you burn. The calories you eat can be tracked easily so you know how much you are consuming. Learn about the tracking tool we suggest here

But what about that calories you burn?
As you can see from the energy balance equation chart, this number makes up the biggest part of the "Calories Out" side of the equation. If you are relying on a formula or estimate to give you this number, you might be not too far off from simply guessing. Knowing your real burn rate allows you to establish a calorie budget that works for you. It is also important to know your metabolism can change, sometimes significantly, as you lose weight. Having your metabolism measured throughout your weight management program will help you reach your goals without hitting frustrating plateaus or scarificing valuable lean muscle.

You can continue to estimate RMR or

you can measure it...

EXACTLY.

Need more information about how to measure your burn rate ? Click here

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