$parker$

Always remember though that there are a number of factors which may affect your BMR. Some of these factors can be controlled by you, while others are bitter realities of life that have to be accepted since they can neither be controlled nor influenced by you. In this article, I will discuss the ‘controllable’ factors.

The more you move, the more energy your body needs. You can do two things about it: you can either increase your activity level in order to match your current calorie intake, or reduce your calorie intake to match your sedentary life. I would recommend the former approach anyway.

Your body weight-An underweight person would have different calorie requirements than one who is either overweight or of normal body weight. Bear in mind that the metabolic rate of an overweight person is not higher than that of a normal individual. However, since the overweight individual has a bigger body, the heart needs to work very hard in order to circulate blood to the entire body; in fact, the more overweight you are, the harder your heart has to work.

Your daily activity level-Your body’s minimum daily calorie requirement depends on how much energy it needs to perform its daily activity, and this in turn depends in a big way on your current activity level. For example, if you are sitting on your couch or near your computer desk the entire day, your calorie requirements would be less than that of a person who is always active and moving.