💊Daily Pill: Basal Metabolic Rate
Momentum works both ways
The Daily Pill is a series of very short daily posts where I share the definition of a medical term I think we should all know. Read it every morning and build up your medical vocabulary.
⛽Basal Metabolic Rate
Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is the amount of energy your body needs to maintain basic physiological functions while at rest. Think of it as the minimum calorie requirement your body needs to exist - so basically to sustain functions like breathing, thinking, circulating blood, and maintaining body temperature - when you're not doing any physical activity. BMR is influenced by several factors including age, sex, body size, and muscle mass, among others.
🤔Why you need to know:
Knowing your BMR can be useful for understanding your energy balance and managing your diet for weight control or health purposes. Since muscle tissue is much more metabolically active than fat tissue, more muscle means your body burns more calories at rest. It's like how a muscle car burns more fuel than a Prius - even when they're both idling at a traffic light🚦.
More muscle helps you burn more calories at rest, which in turns helps you stay lean, which helps you maintain a healthy metabolism, which helps you build muscle and burn fat… Its like a cyclical snowball effect, and as you can imagine, excess fat tissue has the opposite effect. Momentum works both ways champ! choose wisely.
To measure your BMR you need a calorimetry test.
To estimate your BMR you can use the Harris-Benedict Equation or the Mifflin-St Jeor Equation.
🧠Trivia:
Your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) can be influenced by the types of bacteria living in your gut. Recent research suggests that the composition of your gut microbiome—the community of bacteria residing in your digestive tract—can impact your body's metabolic processes, and this includes your BMR.