... Calculating BMR
Hi...
A site that I find very helpful is: "www.freedieting.com"
The "Calorie Calculator - Daily Calorie Needs" - (calculates your BMR, per your age, weight, etc.):
http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm
a.) when you enter your age, weight and activity level, etc. it will give you your BMR for: Maintenance, Fat loss and Extreme weight loss
b.) Right underneath these totals you will see: "7 day calorie cycle (zig-zag)"... click on this... and it will give you your 7 day zig-zag plan, based on the above 3 weight loss choices, i.e. "maintenance, fat loss or extreme weight loss"...
c.) Right below the 7 day calorie zig zag chart you will see: "Get Macro Nutrient Ratios", click on this... you will get your calorie/macro breakdown per meal, **but NOTE - that you have to choose from above what ratio of carbs/fats/proteins that you want to calculate your diet... based on the following choices:
- enter: how many calories you want to eat per day (you would be using the numbers from your "7 day zig-zag chart"... for example a low day could be, 1400... enter this number in "calories per day"
- right below this you will see: "Common Diet Ratios"... you can choose from the following:
- moderate
- moderate I
- Zone diet (40-30-30 ratio)
- low fat
- low carb
- very low carb
You would choose one of these to base your plan on; once you highlight one, it will automatically calculate your ratios... for instance, I chose "low carb" based on 1400 calories and it gave me:
Carbohydrate: 25 %
Protein: 40%
Fat: 35%
... and below that it gives me a breakdown of my: grams per day, grams per meal, calories per day and calories per meal
You can also tweak the "percetage (%) by plugging in your own numbers; for instance I want to change my carbs a little higher, but still based on the "low carb" category, keeping in mind that the total "percentage" of macros has to still equal "100%, I enter:
Carbohydrate: 30%
Protein: 40%
Fat: 30%
... and it gives me my new calculations based on my new numbers...
You can print these out... I have a binder with all my zig-zag calories... My zig-zag looks like this... ( I will have to re-calculate as I lose weight):
Mon:... 1430
Tues:...1350
Wed:....1500
Thurs:...1490
Fri:.......1600
Sat:......1380
... and I base all my numbers, which can change daily, based on what exercises, i.e., strength/cardio, I am doing that day...
This website uses the following formulas under the advanced option:
- Mifflin-St Jeor
- Lean Mass - (nter Body Fat %)
- Harris-Benedict
See which one works best for you.. The Mifflin-St Jeor formula was created in 1990, Harris-Benedict in the early 1900's... I did both calculations for comparison and I use the Mifflin-St Jeo, but they both yield pretty close calculations.
I hope that this helps... the website that I gave you will calculate your BMR like the BFFM formula if you were to choose the HB formula, except that you won't have to calculate it manually...
~ Dee ~
PS: if you have any questions let me know...