What's Affecting Your Basal Metabolic Rate?

By Katherine Crawford M.S.

Increasing your BMR is the most sustainable way to ensure continual fat loss. Why? Because your BMR dictates how many calories you burn around the clock, even while sleeping.

You might be a little confused, however. After all, every single new product that hits the market claims to be the next best thing for raising BMR.

Thus, here are 6 things that affect how many calories you burn around the clock:

1. How old you are. One of the first things that happens as you age is muscle loss. And this translates into less calories burned. The best way to prevent this is with resistance training. Now keep in mind that resistance training doesn't necessarily have to be done in a gym.

2. Body composition. The more lean tissue the more calories you'll burn around the clock. Again, building lean tissue will keep that BMR full blast. And if you feed the mitochondria in your lean tissue the right nutrients, you'll burn even more calories.

3. A high fever. A strong fever will also raise your BMR. Does this mean you should try to get sick? Absolutely not! But it doesn't hurt to know the facts.

4. Stress hormones. The release of stress hormones, mainly from the adrenals, will also increase the amount of calories you burn. Keep in mind, however, that over the long run stress will have a negative impact through a suppressed immune system and muscle loss.

5. Temperature. If you have to adjust to cold temperatures your BMR goes up. If you have to adjust to hot temperatures your BMR also goes up.

6. Caloric drops. If you fast or starve, your BMR will drop very fast. Probably a lot faster than you think. In order to reduce the damage from dieting, you should only slightly restrict calories and never skip meals.

Discovering how to optimize your BMR is the best thing you can do to ensure fat loss success. After all, your BMR has the biggest influence on how many calories your burn on a daily basis. So ignore the hype and stick to the proven facts. - 30414

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