What is your BMR?
The calories your body burns at rest, from four formulas, and what your steps make of it.
How it works
Two formulas use your sex, age, height and weight: Mifflin-St Jeor (1990) and the Harris-Benedict equation as revised in 1984. Two use only your lean mass, so they need your bodyfat: Katch-McArdle (370 plus 21.6 per kilo of lean mass) and Cunningham (500 plus 22 per kilo).
We lead with Mifflin-St Jeor, the most accurate of the common equations in a 2013 test on 337 adults. With your bodyfat you also see Katch-McArdle and Cunningham, which work from lean mass; trust them only with a lab-quality bodyfat, since a home scale can miss by several points. Harris-Benedict runs high for most people today.
Your TDEE is resting burn times your activity level, and your steps set the level: 1.2 under 5,000 a day, up to 1.9 at 12,500 and over. See the range and add your training.
6 sources
- Mifflin MD, St Jeor ST, et al. A new predictive equation for resting energy expenditure in healthy individuals. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1990pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Roza AM, Shizgal HM. The Harris Benedict equation reevaluated: resting energy requirements and the body cell mass. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1984.
- Katch FI, McArdle WD. Nutrition, Weight Control, and Exercise. 1983.
- Cunningham JJ. A reanalysis of the factors influencing basal metabolic rate in normal adults. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1980.
- Frankenfield DC. Bias and accuracy of resting metabolic rate equations in non-obese and obese adults. Clinical Nutrition, 2013pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Tudor-Locke C, Bassett DR. How many steps/day are enough? Preliminary pedometer indices for public health. Sports Medicine, 2004pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
