Be More Responsible (BMR)

    It’s great to have a game plan for every day you head into the gym. Your exercises, set and reps should all be recorded to track growths and weaknesses. The exact same attitude should be applied towards your eating and nutritional habits. Your daily calorie and macro-nutrient intake should be recorded on a daily basis to ensure fitness achievements.
    Let’s better educate ourselves with the basics:

Calorie (k cal): used to measure the energy value of foods.
Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), the rate our bodies use energy at rest to keep our bodies running (Things like breathing, digesting food).

    Depending on your fitness goals, the values of these numbers will change so that your nourishment can properly compliment your training. To determine them properly we’ll first determine our BMR. There’s a simple equation that we can use:


Step 1)
Male: (Weight in Lbs x 13.75) + (Height in cm x 5) - (Age x 6.8) + 66 = BMR
Female: (Weight in Lbs x 9.56) + (Height in cm 1.8) - (Age x 4.7) + 655 = BMR
1 inch = 2.54 cm, 1 pound = 0.45 kg

    *I’m 5’11 (~180cm), 221 Lbs (~90.5kg), and 23 years old:

(221 x 13.75) + (180x 5) - (23 x 6.8) + 66 = 2054 cals

    My body uses 2054 calories in one day in a resting state (no exercise). Depending how much exercise you do in the run of a day, you can multiply your BMR to determine daily expenditure. A basic guideline is:

Step 2)
Inactive lifestyle (desk job/ little-no exercise) = 1.15
Below average active lifestyle = 1.3
Average active lifestyle = 1.4
Very active lifestyle (job on feet/ exercise 5+ days a week) = 1.5

    *I live an active lifestyle, therefore I will multiply by 1.5:

2054 x 1.5 = 3081 cals

    THIS MEANS, I must consume 3081 calories every day in order to maintain my current body. Our goals determine if we need to raise, or lower the number of calories we eat. If we want to get bigger we need to eat excess calories, if we want to lose weight we need to go into caloric deficit, forcing out stored fats to be tapped into for energy. I will draw out some basic guidelines to help:

Step 3)
Lose 1-2 pounds a week: -15-20%
Gain mass: +15-20%

    *I’m trying to gain mass so I would:

3081 cals x 1.15 = ~3700 calories per day

    From these basic steps and calculations, anyone can determine the amount of calories to intake in one day. I recommend slowly adding or subtracting the 15-20% calorie change by 5% per week to allow our bodies to adjust our metabolism accordingly. Therefore if I’m used to eating 3000 cals and now I want to gain mass (I must eat the calculated 3700 cals) I would increase over 4 weeks:
Week 1: 3000 cals, week 2: 3225 cals, week 3 : 3450 cals, week 4: 3700 cals

    The key to success here is recording your daily meals and caloric intake. Pick up a pocket sized notebook and start recording. Or there are several websites/programs that can record daily calories for you. Post a comment below showing your calculated BMR.



Tyler Pritchard
CanFit Pro Personal Training Specialist
tylerrpritchard@gmail.com