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Healthy Diet Plans >>  Calories >>  Calories Burned At Rest

Calories Burned At Rest


It is common knowledge that exercising and physical activities promote burning of fat and calories. However, not many people realize that the body burns a substantial amount of calories when it is at rest. When you are sitting at your desk, eating, or even sleeping, your body continues to use calories for all the bodily functions. This is known as the basal metabolism rate, and the majority of the calories you consume are spent in maintaining this metabolic rate.

Burning Calories While Taking A Rest


Whether or not you are performing any physical activity, your body continues to burn calories. While your body does expend calories when you are at rest, it does not mean that you should stop performing physical activities.

Calories burned at rest usually involve maintaining of the basic functions of your body. Usually, it takes a lot of energy to keep your heart beating and your lungs breathing. Even when your nerves pass impulses and the brain communicates, your body is still spending calories. The calories burnt resting depends on the body type and the general health of a person. For those who have a high rate of metabolism, the basal metabolic rate is higher.

A large part of the number of calories that you consume is used to accomplish the basic functions of the body. The resting metabolic rate denotes the number of calories that are used for the purposes of maintenance of the body’s functions. Another process, known as thermogenesis, uses calories to digest foods even when you are resting. These processes are taken into account when calculating the calories burned resting in one hour.

Process Of Calculating Calories Burned While Resting


Since both RMR and thermogenesis occur while you are still at rest, they are usually used to account for the total calories burnt while at rest. These are both independent of any kind of physical activity. The RMR and thermogenesis processes are considered for calculating the total amount of calories that one should consume on a daily basis. These two processes account for nearly 60% of the calories that you burn every day. In addition to these, your general level of physical activeness is also taken into account when calculating your daily required calories.

Calories Burnt In Per Hour Resting


It can be worthwhile to know the amount of calories burnt in per hour resting as this can help you plan and adjust your daily calorie intake accordingly. This is greatly helpful when you want to increase or lose weight. This would also help you maintain a healthy body weight. The average calories burned when resting muscle can be calculated by using a specially designed machine that measures the oxygen intake and the output of carbon dioxide. The assessment is fairly simple and does not require much preparation. The person is required to sit in a comfortable chair. An oxygen mask is fitted to the person’s mouth to measure the consumption of oxygen.

Calories, Does A Resting Body Burn


How many calories burned resting would depend on the kind of food that you are consuming and also on your general health. This assessment can be performed in a lot of different fitness studios. More sophisticated tests are available in various clinical settings. The calculation may not always be exact, but it is able to give a near approximation of the RMR and thermogenesis. The formula for calculating how many calories does a resting body burn is dependent on age, gender, height and weight. Genetics also play a large role in determining the RMR and the thermogenesis of an individual. There are some ways in which you can increase your RMR so that you lose weight faster. This is especially helpful for those who are planning to lose weight.

Building lean muscle tissue is the best way to improve the RMR. This is because the lean muscle tissues are more active metabolically. The body may burn a lot of calories to keep your lean muscles healthy. To make them function in an optimal manner, the body may have to increases its RMR. Since stored fat is not active metabolically, people who are bulky may not have a very high RMR. For such people, the only way to increase the RMR is to perform resistance training.

If you consume very few calories over a long period of time, it is possible that the RMR and your rate of metabolic rate may decrease. Extreme dieting and fasting may also decrease the rate of metabolism over a long term period. This can make weight loss very difficult. Resting metabolism rate does not decrease with age. Weight gain with increasing age is related to decreased physical activity and not decreased RMR. The slowing of metabolism is often also related to lack of proper nutrition and poor food choices.

Losing weight does not speed up the rate of metabolism. However, replacing the fat tissues with healthy, lean muscle does. Unsuccessful weight loss plans are usually related to the inability to balance exercise and resting metabolic rates.

Submitted on January 16, 2014