Weight Loss and Healthy Living

Your metabolism is the sum of all of your body's functions. Pumping your heart, repairing damaged cells, even digesting foods are all processes that require energy. The term "basal metabolic rate" or "BMR" refers to how many calories you would burn if you did nothing but sleep all day. Because you obviously do more than just sleep, BMR is an interesting number but knowing your real metabolism is far more important. Your real metabolism is the calories you burn, on average, every day, taking into account your BMR and all of your daily activities.


There are many equations that try to estimate your real metabolism. They almost all start with your BMR. The BMR equation takes into account your age, gender, height, and weight, and then based on statistics, produces a number. The first issue is that metabolism is affected by more than just these limited factors. Read Don't Let Your Metabolism Fall to learn more about factors that impact your metabolism and how to improve it.

The second issue comes into play when trying to determine what is referred to as "daily activity." Some calculators will have you key in very specific windows of time and flag them as "sleeping" or "raking leaves" or "exercising." Others just ask a general question, such as "Are you slightly active, moderately active, or extremely active." How do you determine the difference?

Traditionally, you don't. This is why many systems for determining calories fail, because they are based on assumptions with a large margin of error.

I've traditionally recommended software such as DietPower to help determine what your real metabolism is. DietPower has an advanced algorithm that takes into account the foods you eat and the calories you burn to compute what your actual metabolic rate is. It is then able to make adjustments to your allotted daily calories to help you reach a specific goal. You can take a 15-day trial of DietPower to see for yourself.

What few people realize is that you can compute your own "real metabolism" with nothing more than a few numbers and some simple equations.

What is the value of knowing your "real metabolism"?

It takes the guesswork out of figuring out what calories you need to reach a certain goal. I wrote about The Body Weight Factor and how you can use your weight to make some very good estimates and adjustments for your goals. If you aren't seeing the success you would like, or have a very strict deadline to reach your goal, then you may want to have something a little more precise. This is when your real metabolic rate comes into play.

So how do we figure out your true metabolism to set a realistic calorie goal for achieving your desired weight?

I am going to use my own 12 Week Weight Loss Journey as an example. I go through fluctuations with my own weight and often find myself needing to set more strict goals. I created a journal to show just how I manage my training and nutrition for this.

The first step is to create a baseline. You must be consistent with your nutrition and know how much your are consuming. Counting calories isn't necessarily a lifelong activity, but most people I know who are successful with losing weight and keeping it off have some idea of what they are consuming and how their weight is changing. There are many free tools like FitDay.com for tracking your calories. You should pick a time that is long enough to see tangible results. I suggest tracking calories for between two to three weeks at first.

You must also track your weight change during this period. It is the combination of how your weight has changed along with the calories you consumed that help us determine your real metabolic rate.

In my case, I tracked calories for 21 days. I was averaging about 2610 calories per day and went from 227.5 pounds down to 223.5 pounds during that period.

So, step one is to figure out just how many calories I burned. If you are weighing yourself in kilograms, just multiply by 2.2 to get your weight in pounds.

My change in weight was 228 - 224 = 4 pounds. Because there are about 3,500 calories in a pound of fat, I can assume I burned around 4 x 3500 = 14,000 calories.

The period of time was 21 days. 14,000 calories / 21 days = an average of 667 calories burned per day.

Now it becomes very simple to determine my real metabolism ... I simply take the average calories I consumed per day and add the calories that I burned, and that is what my average daily metabolism is!

So, 2610 + 667 = 3277 calories. That means, on average, I burn exactly 3277 calories per day, and if I ate that amount of calories and kept my activity levels consistent, I should not gain or lose any weight.

Now let's figure out how to compute our target calories to consume.

I had a goal weight of 200 pounds. I had 64 days remaining until my goal.

That means 224 - 200 = 24 pounds to lose, or 24 x 3500 = 84,000 calories total. 84,000 calories divided by 64 days = 1312 calories per day I need to burn. If I kept my same activity level, then I would be able to reach my goal by consuming 3277 - 1312 = 1965 calories (or about 2,000) calories per day.

That's it ... plain and simple. If I felt 2,000 calories were too low, and I really wanted to consume closer to 2200 calories, I'd simply add in enough extra exercise such as jogging or walking on the treadmill, to make up the extra 200 calories per day.

If these calculations seem a bit complicated, don't worry. I've put together a gadget to do it all for you. The Real Metabolism Calculator™ will not only help you determine your real metabolism, but will also take your goal weight and assist you with determining the average calories you need to reach that goal.

CLICK HERE to put this on YOUR Website!

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