|  | Diet Nutrition | Weight Control

Evening Heart Rate

Even while you are at rest, your body burns calories. The number of calories your body expends when you are resting quietly is called your resting metabolic rate. Often, RMR is best calculated right after waking up or just before bed if you've had a calm evening. Calculating and tracking your RMR is critical for both your physical fitness and diet regimens. Once you know your RMR, you can calculate the calories you must consume or expend to lose or maintain weight.

  1. Calculating RMR

    • Once you calculate your RMR, you will know the number of calories your body burns each day simply to sustain your resting activities such as work, driving, eating and sleeping. To continue performing these basic functions, you must replace the calories you burn by consuming food. Before you begin your calculation, weigh yourself and calculate your height in inches. Multiply your weight by 4.35, and multiply your height by 4.7. Add 655 to the two numbers you obtain. Finally, multiply your age by 4.7 and subtract this number from the total amount. For example, a 50-year-old woman who is 5 feet 1 inch tall, or 62 inches, and weighs 150 pounds has an RMR of about 1,365; this is the number of calories her body burns at rest.

    Weight Loss

    • Once you calculate your resting metabolic rate, you know your basic daily calorie needs, a baseline you can use to calculate how many calories you must consume to complete your bodily functions and daily routines. To determine a calorie target for healthy weight loss, calculate your maintenance calorie load, or the amount of calories you must consume each day, to maintain your weight. To calculate, multiple your RMR by 1.5. For example, the 50-year-old, 150-pound woman with an RMR of 1,365 needs 2,045 calories to maintain her weight. To lose weight, consume at or slightly above your RMR but not exceeding your maintenance calorie load.

    Dinner

    • During the evening, many people slow down, resting after a long day at work. With this slower pace, comes dinnertime and, often, mindless snacking in front of the television. Once you have calculated your RMR, you will be able to track the calories you consume against the calories you need to lose or maintain weight throughout the day, from breakfast through the last meal or snack you eat. Keep a calorie journal that tracks the approximate number of calories you consume for each meal and snack. This information is readily available on food labels. Ensure that your dinner or a late-night snack won't put you over your target calorie limit.

    Resting

    • Don't confuse resting and basal metabolic rate. Calculating basal metabolic rate -- the calories your body expends to sustain proper organ function -- is preferred to resting metabolic rate. However, the conditions for calculating BMR are extremely stringent and require complete rest, which is often unattainable outside of a clinical setting. Due to the difficulty of calculating BMR, RMR is often a preferred alternative. RMR takes into account the calories expended at rest while supporting various functions such as reading, writing, working from a computer and other less-vigorous activities, many of which happen during the evening after a long day at work.

Weight Control - Related Articles