What is Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)

Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)

Basal Metabolic Rate is a measure of the energy that your body uses when it is inactive. It represents the minimum amount of energy required to keep your body functioning like heart beating, lungs breathing, brain working and body temperature normal.

BMR accounts for 60-75% of daily calories burned. This means you burn the most calories while at rest. The faster your metabolic rate the more calories you burn.

People with a high percentage of muscle mass burn more calories while at rest. This means it is important to not only lose fat but to gain muscle in the weight loss process. By increasing your total muscle mass, you can increase your bodies total energy requirements even while at rest and increase your metabolic rate .

What Is Metabolism?

Hydration: Attempt Only Under Medical Supervision

I've noticed how the word "hydration" has crept into the popular lexicon in the last decade or so. Before that, we were so primitive, we just "drank water". Now you need a PhD just to put a glass to your lips. I'm not sure I'm qualified!

I've been hearing so many people, including health professionals, tell me to drink 8 glasses of water a day for my entire life. In my middle school health class, I was told by my hydrophilic teacher that I should be urinating every hour and my urine should always be clear. For my whole life, I've thought it was nonsense. Yet the message has reached people. Walk around any college campus and you'll see undergrads faithfully carrying around their endocrine-disrupting plastic-water everywhere they go.

You see, our bodies have this very sophisticated mechanism to ensure water homeostasis. It's called thirst. If we need so much water to be healthy, why aren't we thirsty more often?

I skimmed through a paper today in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology that reviews the evidence for health benefits from drinking more water than your thirst demands. Their conclusion: there's no evidence to suggest it helps anything. Water is just a nice harmless placebo.

The term "hydration" has helped fuel a whole industry to satisfy our need for hydration technology. Gatorade claims it hydrates better than water. It must be the high-fructose corn syrup and yellow #5... And make sure to bring your "hydration pack" when you go on your 20 minute jog; you might get lost and end up in the Kalahari desert!

I actually think the water craze isn't totally harmless. Drinking large amounts of water with a meal interferes with digestion by diluting digestive enzymes and stomach acid. Drinking a tall beer does the same. Wine is better because it tends to be a smaller volume.

As far as I'm concerned, with minor exceptions, the only thing to drink is water. I'll have an occasional glass of wine, beer or whole raw milk, but 99% of what I drink is good old-fashioned dihydrogen oxide.

The only time I drink a large amount of water without being thirsty is if I'm about to do vigorous exercise or spend time outside in hot weather.

Thanks to Snap for the CC photo.

Pounds to Kilos, Kilos To Pounds Converter

Kilogram < > Pound Conversion
Enter a number in either field, then click outside the text box
Kilograms :
Pounds :

A Shift in Tastes

I noticed it for the first time a few weeks ago. One of my labs was having a cake and ice cream party for someone's birthday and it didn't tempt me in the slightest. Today, I looked at a box of candy on the table at work and it seemed distinctly unappetizing. My taste for sugar has all but disappeared.

When I was a child, I couldn't get enough sugar. My parents would buy reduced sugar cereal and I would add a heaping tablespoon of sugar to each bowl. My favorite part was the sweet slurry at the bottom after the cereal was gone.

By the time I went to college, I knew sugar was unhealthy. It took massive amounts of willpower to keep myself from gorging on donuts and ice cream. Often, my willpower wasn't enough. Since then, I've been gradually refining my diet and the cravings have become more manageable. Sugar binges became rare.

In the past six months, I've made some new lifestyle changes based on my current understanding of nutrition and health. I've reduced my carbohydrate intake, drastically reduced my grain intake, and increased my fat intake. Most of my carb intake comes from vegetables now, with small portions of legumes from time to time as well. I've also added interval training and weight lifting to my exercise routine, which was formerly a 30 minute bike commute every day.

After an adjustment period of 3-4 months, my tastes have changed. I don't crave sugar or starchy foods anymore, and I can't get enough fat. I could eat practically nothing but fatty meat, but I don't for environmental and financial reasons. I do eat a lot of eggs, and an amount of lard, butter, olive oil and coconut oil that would make Dean Ornish weep. I see it as a very good sign that my body has made the shift from a carbohydrate-burning metabolism to a fat-burning one. Since carbohydrate and sugar cravings are related to insulin levels in my opinion, my insulin has probably dropped.

I'm going to get my bloodwork done sometime soon; I'll post it on the blog so you can all see how my self-experimentation is working. Then we can decide whether I'm onto something or full of hot air. I'd like to know my total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, triglycerides, fasting insulin, HbA1c and perhaps glucose tolerance.

Thanks to Andrew Huff for the CC photo.

10-Grain Mini Muffins from the Cookbook

Another Healthy Snack option from page 169 of the LivingAfterWLS Neighborhood Cookbook:10-Grain Mini MufinsIngredients:1 large egg, room temperature1/2 c. turbinado sugar (raw sugar)1 c. all-purpose flour1 c. 10-grain cereal (Bob's Redd Mill)1 tsp. salt1 tsp. baking powder1/2 tsp baking soda1 1/4 c. milk3 T. honey1/3 c. margarineMix Bob's 10-Grain Cereal and milk and allow to stand for 10 minutes

Low-carb Review Article

The other day, I came across this nice review article from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. It gives a thorough but accessible overview of the current state of research into carbohydrate-restricted diets, without all the fatophobic mumbo-jumbo. It points out a few "elephants in the room" that the mainstream likes to ignore. First of all, the current approach isn't working:

The persistence of an epidemic of obesity and type 2 diabetes suggests that new nutritional strategies are needed if the epidemic is to be overcome.

Preagricultural diets were low in carbohydrate:

In contrast to current Western diets, the traditional diets of many preagricultural peoples were relatively low in carbohydrate (1, 2). In North America, for example, the traditional diet of many First Nations peoples of Canada before European migration comprised fish, meat, wild plants, and berries. The change in lifestyle of several North American aboriginal populations occurred as recently as the late 1800s, and the numerous ensuing health problems were extensively documented (3-5). Whereas many aspects of lifestyle were altered with modernization, these researchers suspected that the health problems came from the change in nutrition—specifically, the introduction of sugar and flour.

Carbohydrate reduction leads to a normalization of appetite:

It may also be that the mere lowering of serum insulin concentrations, as is seen with LCDs, may lead to a reduction in appetite. In support of this idea, several studies have found that insulin increases food intake, that foods with high insulin responses are less satiating, and that suppression of insulin with octreotide leads to weight loss (27-29).

I can't believe it; all that fat isn't going to clog my arteries??

Several outpatient diet studies have shown reductions in CVD risk factors after an 8–12-wk LCKD, during weight loss, and during weight maintenance (21, 60-62).

The last paragraph is a zinger:

We emphasize that strategies based on carbohydrate restriction have continued to fulfill their promise in relation to weight loss and that, contrary to early concerns, they have a generally beneficial effect on most markers of CVD, even in the absence of weight loss. In combination with the intuitive and established efficacy in relation to glycemic control in diabetics, some form of LCD may be the preferred choice for weight reduction as well as for general health.

Do not skip meals, eat smaller, more frequent meals and eat breakfast everyday

Skipping meals makes you hungry and you end up eating a lot later. Avoid that craving by eating small frequent meals. Instead of eating three large meals a day, try eating smaller, more frequent meals. Reduce portion sizes at your regular meals, and add small snacks in between each meal. Smaller meals help keep your metabolism charged. It balances your calorie intake throughout the day and also keeps your blood sugar level balanced and takes care of cravings.

Many people think skipping breakfast is a great way to cut calories, but they usually end up eating more later. Do not skip breakfast. It is the most important meal of the day. Skipping breakfast makes you hungry which you tend to compensate by eating a lot during lunch, snack, and dinner. Avoid that craving by eating a hearty meal in the morning.