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How to Calculate Your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)?

Written by

Kinshuk Snehi

Calculating BMR is the first step in the process of determining how many calories you need for optimal nutrition. This will help you a weekly create a diet plan.

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As a fitness coach, onboarding a client comes with several data-driven questions. ‘What’s your current weight’ and ‘what’s your height’ is just the beginning.

As a personal trainer, you have to deal with such data daily - crunching the numbers and making sense to draw out that perfect nutrition and workout plan for your clients.

BMR is one of the most important measurements you need to make in order to assess your clients' fitness level.

Whenever your client wants to lose weight, their first thought is "I need to cut my calories and get more exercise." This is because the details of losing weight and gaining it back are not well understood.

BMR metric will assist you in meal planning for your clients and you'll be able to determine exactly how many calories their body needs to function on a daily basis, as well as how many calories they need in order to maintain your current weight or lose weight.

BMR CalC will then create a meal plan based on this formula so that every meal you eat will ensure maximum results while still being nutritious.

The math might seem complex to many people (because it is), and it looks like this:

STEP 1: Calculating Base Metabolic Rate

Men: 66 + (13.7 X weight in kg) + (5 X height in cm) - (6.8 X age in years)

Women: 655 + (9.6 X weight in kg) + (1.8 X height in cm) - (4.7 X age in years)

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STEP 2: Find your 'maintenance calories' by taking into consideration your activity level

Once you have your Base Metabolic Rate ('BMR'), you need to find your 'maintenance calories'

Multiply your BMR by an appropriate activity factor

Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (little or no exercise, desk job)

Lightly active = BMR X 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)

Mod. active = BMR X 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)

Very active = BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)

Extra. Active = BMR X 1.9

STEP 3: Once you have this number, you look at your goal

Weight gain/muscle gain (calorie surplus) - add 15% of calories per day

weight loss / fat loss (calorie deficit) - minus 15% of calories per day

STEP 4: Macronutrient ratios

40% protein 30% carbs 30% fat of daily calories for cutting

40% carbs 30% protein 30% fat of daily calories for bulking

It’s a lengthy calculation! And while doing it for a handful of clients is manageable, it can get out of hand when you have several clients.

What if we told you that there’s an easier way to automate all these calculations and determine your clients’ Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) in no time?

FitBudd's all-new BMR feature automates these calculations as your client advances in their fitness journey and even updates the minimum calories requirement to match the ongoing level.

To achieve this, we have integrated proven and standardized equations into our nutrition builder. The FitBudd platform lets you ask a set of questions to your clients and then uses this information for accurate calculations.

And when your clients progress in their fitness journey and feed their information on the app, like weight change, the platform updates their BMR calculation automatically.

Are you still wondering how you can do this?

To assign a BMR based meal plan to a client:

1. Go to the ‘Clients’ section, move to the ‘Active Clients’ section and open the profile of the client you want to assign the Meal Schedule to. Click on the ‘Schedule’ tab.
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2. Click on the blue ‘Edit’ button on the right side of the screen. Switch ‘ON’ the toggle for nutrition.

3. In the drop-down menu under Nutrition, select the ‘BMR Based’ option.

4. Once you select the ‘BMR Based’ option, a macro-based meal plan will be assigned to your client based on their basic details such as age, weight, height and the answer they have provided in the onboarding questionnaire. Click on ‘Save’ on the top right corner of the screen to assign this schedule to your client.

Calculating BMR is the first step in the process of determining how many calories you need for optimal nutrition. Ultimately, this will help you create a weekly meal plan/ diet plan for your clients. It will help you save time and choose healthy meal plans, personalized meal plans and create balanced nutrition for your clients.

This is just one feature. The FitBudd platform simplifies all the tasks that are required to run a successful fitness business. You can explore all its features and see if it’s the right fit for you!

So, why wait?