This week in review (11/2/24 - 18/2/24)

Body composition

Body measurements

Big Thing of the Week

So this week, I was doing a lot of research around BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). The simplest definition of which I can explain as the amount of calories needed in order to maintain current weight.

How do you calculate BMR?

Well for starters, my fancy pants smart weighing scale ¹ spits out a BMR (amongst other body comp data). 2993kcal being the current value.

I found a few online calculators as well, where you can simply plug-in your weight, height, age and activity level and out comes your BMR. For example -

But this isn’t as straightforward and generally applicable as it might first seem.

Why are we calculating BMR?

Anyone and everyone can lose a lot of weight by eating too little. (insert all fad diets here). This approach is unhealthy at the best of times and outright dangerous for most. Eating too little can cause fatigue, lower metabolism and significantly impact one’s immune system.

However, the worst part is - it’s simply not sustainable. So it’s no wonder then when people come out of this phase having lost a lil weight. Even going back to what they were consuming before they went on this diet - causes their weight to shoot up. (hence the term yo-yo).

The Idea of BMR then, is that once we know our maintenance calories, we can create a slight deficit or surplus of say (100-500 cal) max from our maintenance to lose or gain weight sustainably.

My Context

Since I lie on the heavy end of heavy, I started tracking my macros with an arbitrary low goal of 1900 kcal. I’ve been achieving this number for the past 2-3 weeks in which time I was able to shed weight steadily.

However I do feel like I have a tendency to crash during the day. The reasoning might be -

• that strength training in fasted state is simply exhausting.
• another could be that there’s just not enough calories to go around. (my money’s on this)

Approach

I will UP the amount of calories intake to 2100 for the entire week and notice how my weight and mood trends throughout the week.

Based on this, I should hit one of 3 cases -

1. If I gain weight at the end of the week, I’ll cut calories by 100-150 calories.
2. If my weight remains where it is. Track more diligently and verify if this truly is my maintenance.
3. If my weight drops, then there could be two things in play -
   • I can get by, with further increasing my calories and repeat the entire process all over again.
   • else, this would become my next target calories, until I hit a plateau.

Finally, since we’re all built very differently from one another, our metabolic, immune, and underlying pre-conditions make us all the more unpredictable and distinguished. Thus, this approach (based on my knowledge to date) is the most practical way to calculate one’s BMR.

Until next time. Ciao!

— MM.