BMR, Tracking, Optimizing Results

What is BMR?
How This Nutrition Reset Affects Your Metabolism (in the best ways)

Basal, or resting, metabolic rate is the energy your body uses to perform essential functions while you’re at rest, like keeping your blood circulating and your lungs working. Things we don’t even think about are actually burning calories! BMR is the number of calories burned per minute for these basic tasks. This rate typically accounts for about 50 to 70 percent of your total daily calorie expenditure, depending on factors such as age, muscle mass, and overall health. So even when you’re not moving all day, you’re still burning calories and that’s why it’s SO important to understand this concept. When you undereat, you’re not giving your body enough fuel to perform even its most basic functions.   Proper nutrition can support an efficient metabolism by providing the necessary nutrients to maintain these vital functions and support muscle health, and that is our focus here!

Your metabolism adapts and that’s why what we do can have an impact on it. It adapts to eating less, eating more, not eating, or not sleeping properly. It can positively adapt to being fueled properly and having the appropriate amounts of micronutrients. 

Have you ever started a low calorie diet to lose weight, and then all of a sudden, it stops working? That is because your body, and specifically your metabolism, is adapting. Your body is smart. It will down-regulate your metabolism if you under-fuel it for too long.

Importance of Tracking Your Intakes 

If you have never tracked your intakes to see what you’re really consuming, you can’t confidently know if you’re eating too much or too little for your goals. (Most people come to us for fat loss and are UNDER-eating, FYI.) Furthermore, if you have never compared your intakes to your resting metabolic rate, activity level, and how that amount of food makes you feel, you might be surprised.

If you’ve tracked before but stopped or took a break from it, good for you. No one should track all the time. You can use this program for guidance on how to frame your tracking this time around to get the most out of it.

If you are currently already tracking and you’re still here for a reset, that’s great, too. We can make sure you’re in a good place with your intakes (and micros and hormones, etc) before you jump back into anything else.

Optimizing Your Nutrition for Best Results

The second thing we often find is that most people are not filling their meals with the foods necessary to get optimal (or quick) results. It’s like oil for your car. Your car will run without oil for a while, but it won’t be as efficient, and eventually it’ll break down altogether. Vitamins and minerals are the oil. Your body will function without them for a while, but soon your thyroid won’t work as well, your hormones won’t talk to each other like they should, and eventually fat loss and/or muscle growth will come to a screeching halt, regardless of how much you’re eating.

So no matter where you are in your journey, let’s spend at least 6 weeks resetting things. Let’s give you the BEST chance for success before you follow that fat loss plan, start that training program, or hire that coach.

Note: If you purchased this program but have never tracked macros (short for macronutrients) before, that’s okay! You can still go through the steps. However, it’s helpful to understand macros on a basic level. Start by reading through this module: Macro Tracking with a Purpose

Disclaimer: If you’re pregnant or breastfeeding, are a competitive athlete, or have a metabolic disease, this reset will be too general for you. In your case, it would be imperative to pair this program with a one-on-one consultation with a dietitian. Similarly, we do not recommend tracking to anyone under 18, or with a history of eating disorders.

What you need:

• Food scale
  • Let’s be as accurate as possible during this time. Less variable = more results
• Cronometer app
  • Sorry MyFitnessPal users, I stand by this. Cronometer is free and gives you WAY more information that will help out during this module. You can go back to MFP after you’re finished!
• Calendar
  • It will be helpful to write down your plan EXACTLY and hold yourself accountable to it, while also noting other things you have coming up during your 6-week reset.
• Journal or Notes App
  • We encourage you to track your progress, write down thoughts and answer the self-reflection questions at the end of each week.