Estimating your basal metabolism

March 6, 2012 - By Karine Larose, M.Sc.

Temps de lecture 2 minutes

The basal metabolism is the energy that the organism needs to sustain the body at rest. This includes breathing, making the heart beat, regulating body temperature, repairing tissues, sleeping, the functioning of the liver, kidneys, etc. It is the energy necessary to maintain the vital functions of the body and it represents up to 70% of the calories we burn in a day.

When we say that the basal metabolism of someone is high, it means that the quantity and the speed at which calories are burned in order to answer the needs of vital functions are high. The quantity and the speed at which calories are burned by the basal metabolism will vary greatly from one person to another.

Factors that influence the basal metabolism :

Sex (women tend to have a slower metabolism than men, by about 10%)
Age (tends to decrease with age)
Body fat percentage (a fat person will have a slower metabolism)
The practice of repeated restrictive diets (they are said to lower basal metabolism)

To learn approximately how many calories your organism at rest burns in a day, enter the required information in the designed fields by clicking here.

What to change according to your objectives?

You have to know that if you want to maintain your weight, you need to provide your body with at least the required amount of calories your organism at rest needs in order to function properly. This number will help you better estimate the minimal quantity of calories you need to eat every day just to live. If you are slightly active, you need to eat more to answer your overall need of energy. A nutritionist can be an ally at this stage of your process.

There are also devices that enable you to evaluate your body composition and give you a fairly reliable estimation of your basal metabolism.

Estimating your basal metabolism is a post from Nautilus Plus. The Nautilus Plus blog aims to help people in their journey to fitness through articles on training, nutrition, motivation, exercise and healthy recipes.
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