How To Burn Extra Calories Every Day
Daily activities burn more calories than you might imagine. If you become a little more active in your daily life, you’re on you way to losing weight.
The number of calories needed to maintain a specific weight varies dramatically from person to person depending on genetic factors and on the amount of daily activity. Weight is gained only if the number of calories consumed is greater than the number of calories burned. Similarly, with weight loss, the number of calories consumed must be fewer than the amount of calories burned.
Assume that your BMR turns out to be 1,300 calories a day. If you determine that you burn an additional 500 calories a day through daily activities and exercise, that means your total calorie expenditure would be 1,800 calories a day. To maintain your weight, you would need to consume 1,800 calories a day. If you consumed fewer calories than you burned, you would lose weight. If you consumed more calories than you burned, you would gain weight.
It is possible to burn more calories and to speed up the burning process. By building muscle tissue, your body works harder, thus enabling you to expend more energy or calories. On average, for each additional pound of muscle amassed, about 50 additional calories are used daily. In other words, with a regular weight program, your BMR can experience an increase of 15%. Simply from moving around more, your daily activity level can easily rise.
Calculating Your BMR (basal metabolic rate)
Height, weight, and age help determine how many calories a woman needs to maintain her weight. All of those components are factored into your basal metabolic rate, or your BMR. The basal metabolic rate is the number of calories you burn when you are exerting the least energy, such as staying in bed all day. It is important to know your basal metabolic rate because the BMR takes into account the fact that lean body weight declines as you grow older. The number of calories you need to maintain your weight now is different from what it was years ago.
The formula to calculate the BMR for women is:
655 + ( 4.35 x weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 x height in inches ) – ( 4.7 x age in years ) = BMR
