Let us at Atlantic Endocrinology & Diabetes Center explain why your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) matters.
Metabolism is the process by which your body changes the food and liquid you take in into energy for use.
Why Your Resting Metabolic Rate Matters
Your resting metabolic rate signifies the number of calories you’re burning at rest, without having to perform any activity.
The higher that rate is, the more you can eat without getting fat.
How does your resting metabolic rate influence your metabolism
Your metabolism is all the chemical processes that your body needs to stay alive. It dictates the number of calories you burn each day.
A calorie is a unit that measures the energy you get from the food you consume and the energy you expend through physical activity.
The faster your metabolism, the higher your daily calorie burn.
The following factors influence your metabolic speed:
- Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT): NEAT refers to the number of calories you burn through non-exercise activities, like typing on your computer, driving your car, or standing up.
- Exercise activity thermogenesis (EAT): EAT is the number of calories you burn each day through physical exercise.
- Thermic effect of food (TEF): Your thermic effect of food refers to the number of calories you burn through digesting food and absorbing nutrients. Your TEF typically accounts for 10 percent of the total calories you burn each day.
- Resting metabolic rate: This is the number of calories you burn when your body is in a state of complete rest. Put another way, your RMR is the minimum number of calories you need to keep your body functioning properly.
Resting Metabolic Rate and Metabolic health
In the journal, Metabolic Syndrome and Related Disorders, metabolic health is described as having ideal levels of blood sugar, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, blood pressure, and waist circumference, without using medications.
Research suggests that a low resting metabolic rate is associated with metabolic syndrome – a cluster of conditions that simultaneously occur, increasing your risk of heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes.
These conditions include increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist, and abnormal cholesterol or triglyceride levels.
The organs working overtime are the heart, brain, lungs, liver, and kidneys, which constitute about 80% of the total calories used every day.
The brain alone uses about one-fifth of your RMR. Children’s calorie needs skyrocket when at rest in comparison to adults.
Children under age at rest approximately burn twice as many calories as adults. The RMR drops by about 25% between ages 6 and 18, and every consequent decade it declines by another 2% to 3%.
As we get older, we become less active and this results in the loss of calorie-burning mass.
Factors That Affect Your Metabolism
Age
Body Fat Percentage
Gender
Weight
Height
Body temperature
Diet
Exercise
External temperature
Genetics
Hormones
Why you should know your resting metabolic rate
At Atlantic Endocrinology & Diabetes Center we know that impacted by a wide range of factors, resting metabolic rate can vary vastly from person to person, even among those of the same gender, age, and weight range.
Knowing your unique RMR can help you understand the number of calories you need to consume each day to achieve weight optimization and your overall health goals.
How to Boost Your Metabolism
Eating enough protein will allow your body to build and repair its muscle tissue. As a result, this will help you maintain or develop your muscle mass.
Increasing your daily activity level, including through strength training, will not only burn more calories, but also strengthen your muscle mass.
Eating less sugar (and more protein and fat) will boost your RMR; the amount of energy that the body requires to process sugar is relatively small compared with that required to process fat and/or protein.
How often should you test your resting metabolic rate
Because your RMR is a dynamic number impacted by factors listed above—like your age or changes in your body composition, diet, or medication—it’s a good idea to test yours every three to six months.
Because your unique resting metabolic rate informs your nutritional consumption and exercise needs, knowing your current RMR tells you the precise number of calories you need to gain, maintain, or lose weight.