Energy, Calorie Intake, and Daily Burn

Energy, Calorie Intake, and your Daily Burn

As a nutrition coach, I’ve spent years studying nutrition and exercise. The science behind energy balance seems like simple math (calories in vs calories out), in reality, there are many variables to confuse the math. It’s those variables that frustrate and confuse us. When it comes to the fuzzy math of energy balance, we all feel a bit like Einstein:

There are three modes of Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE):

1. Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) how much energy our body burns at rest (60-75%),
2. Thermic Effect of Food (TEF) or much energy it takes to digest food (10%),
3. Thermic Effect of Physical Activity (TEPA) the energy needed for all non resting activity (10-30%)

What is surprising is that your BMR or Basal Metabolic Rate, uses the highest percentage of daily energy requirements or calorie burn. It’s interesting to learn that our liver, brain and skeletal muscle burn 27, 19 and 18 percent of the resting or basal metabolic rate, respectively. We are conditioned into thinking exercise is the only way to burn more calories and this is true as exercise is a major contributor to BMR.

Physical activity helps maintain muscle over time, the muscle you maintain burns calories as you rest. Exercise increases your TDEE three ways; burning calories as you workout, maintaining muscle which burns calories at rest, and EPOC or burning calories as during recovery.

Building and maintaining muscle mass (lean body mass) triggers your BMR to burn more calories while at rest. Share on X

What can you do to drive up your Basal Metabolic Rate, making it burn hotter?

• Aerobic exercise sessions typically burn 5 -7 calories a minute
• Strength training burns 5 – 8 calories a minute
• Strength training has a longer afterburn effect via EPOC
• Muscle tissue burns more calories at rest than bodyfat
• Without resistance training, we lose muscle mass as we age

For all intent and purposes; both aerobic and strength exercise burn the same relative amount of energy during the activity. That is during exercise, we are talking about RMR, or what is happening while at rest.

After exercise there is a period called EPOC, or post exercise oxygen consumption, where your body is replenishing energy stores; EPOC requires additional calories to accomplish. Studies show that resistance, or strength training, elicits more of a post exercise calorie burn, with increased fat oxidation, over other types of exercise.

Maintenance: both fat tissues and muscle mass in our body require energy each day.

• Each pound of body fat stores burn approximately 2 – 3 calories a day during rest
• Each pound of muscle tissue requires between 30-50 calories a day at rest

Increasing the amount of muscle mass you have on your body certainly will help you burn more calories each and every day; while working and at rest. As we age, we are losing lean body mass, gaining fat, and our metabolism slows down. The trend to lose muscle mass as we age is seen across studies, don’t let it happen to you.

The other piece to this puzzle is metabolic flexibility, or which energy source your body uses during activity. For most, the goal of fitness is improved health and burning energy, by energy we mean bodyfat. Typically, our bodies are burning bodyfat at rest and during low intensity exercise; during higher intensity exercise our bodies switch to more of a carbohydrate fuel source. The process of metabolic flexibility is something we work on with our clients and their nutrient timing.

Unfortunately for people who are untrained or with poor eating habits, their bodies aren’t burning bodyfat as efficiently as those who have a higher percentage of lean body mass, or muscle tissue.

So what should you do?

The single most important thing is working to maintain or build muscle tissue! This also works to reverse the effect of aging, maintains strong bones, as well as heats up your metabolism.

Chronically under-eating depletes muscle tissue and slows metabolism. Do you know your TDEE or Total Daily Energy Expenditure? If your daily intake is chronically low, jumping into higher caloric intakes can be problematic; you might need coaching advice as you transition your body to

• Eating the proper food amounts
• Building your lean muscle mass
• Speeding up your metabolism as you build up your TDEE

What about you, are you still trying to burn off those last few pounds?

Do you feel like you’re spinning your wheels?

Are you interested in learning about how you can eat more of the foods you love and still lose bodyfat?

Are you exercising more, eating less, and feeling like you are losing muscle tone?

Get on the list for our next group coaching session, or contact us for personalized coaching.

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