Resting metabolic rate accounts for 70% of daily calories burned in sedentary people. It’s influenced by age, body size, body composition, gender, and genetics which can be triggered to influence factors that raise or lower it. So let’s focus on the 2 main factors that will impact your genetics the most…

resting metabolic rate vs. active metabolic rate

Back in 2002 I learned how to test my clients resting metabolic rate using a breathing device that was fairly accurate and one of the most shocking things I discovered as a fairly new trainer was that women over 60 can have a resting metabolic rate as low as 800 and approaching 700. What that means is you only need 700-800 calories a day for basic body functions. So if you’re fairly sedentary and you’re maybe burning an extra 100-200 calories a day shuffling around your home or running a few errands but you are eating in the 1500-2000 calorie range, which is pretty common for many women, then your ability to lose weight and reduce unhealthy levels of bodyfat is very compromised.

The obvious ways to fix this are to not be so sedentary. Adding in cardio and just being more active around your house will increase your calories burned also known as your active metabolic rate but how do you actually increase your resting metabolic rate? Because let’s face it even if you’re walking the dog several times a day, gardening, cleaning, playing with your grandkids, all this will have a minimal impact on your metabolism compared to triggering factors that have a big impact on genetics which can really turn up that metabolism.

How genetic factors are triggered to raise your RMR

Let’s start with one of the main factors that triggers aging which is muscle loss. The minute you start losing muscle mass you also start losing bone mass, hair, skin tone, energy, strength, balance, coordination and that’s not all! There are other important hormonal functions that suffer due to muscle loss as well. Adding lean muscle back on the body is so important for health but also keeps you from aging faster and gaining weight and body size in the form of unwanted body fat. Lean muscle has even been found to turn back the clock in many ways.

The trick here is knowing how often and how much resistance training in relation to cardio and stretching your unique body needs in order to gain adequate muscle that reverses all the losses I just listed. A general rule for anybody who has been sedentary and is really motivated to change their resting metabolic rate is 3-4 times a week of resistance exercise. Of course this can vary depending on your unique DNA but this is generally a good guideline for most and can be easily worked into your weekly routine without having to spend hours working out daily.

The F word that everybody loves to talk about

The other main factor that triggers how your body expresses age, body size, and body composition is your food choices, specifically your macros [the ratios of carbs to protein to fats]. If you’ve ever been on a low carb, low fat, paleo, keto, or vegan diet then you’ve already experienced shifting your macros. Maybe that shift worked to create the ideal environment in your body for energy production, fat metabolism, and health or maybe that shift was disastrous and caused you to gain more weight and fat plus get sicker and weaker.

Knowing how to manipulate your macros is probably one of the most important things you can ever learn and it’s much easier to do when you don’t guess what your ideal macros are. There are assessments you can do that will give you an o.k. estimate of your ideal macros but assessments have limitations so it really is best to find out from DNA testing which has become more accurate since it became popular back in 2015.

Your ideal macros will tell you if you need to eat more protein or if modest protein amounts are fine for your health and fitness goals. Your macros will tell you if you need to be on a 65% healthy fats diet or on a 25% healthy fats diet. That is a huge difference that can mean needing to eat 780 calories of fat or 300 calories of fat per day in order to lose weight. Remember that the nutrients you put in your body trigger every single function from digestion to energy production, to muscle building to tissue repair, inflammation and stress response, heart function, blood glucose, brain function and so on. FOOD IS MEDICINE as they say.

Food is also the key to looking and feeling younger. Imagine making just a few science based tweaks to your eating habits that impact your unique genetics in a positive way. This goes beyond eating better. It’s about following a smarter more custom eating plan that will work for your unique body.

All the OTHER factors that impact your genetics and RMR big time

What else could you possibly manipulate to boost your resting metabolic rate other than your macros and your type duration and frequency of exercises? Here is just a short list of factors that we can measure during a health and fitness assessment:

caffeine
environmental toxins
emotional stress
hydration
injury risk
impulse control
intrinsic extrinsic motivation
minerals
mental stress
physical stress
recovery supplements
recovery activities
sleep quality
sleep duration
sun exposure

The body is an amazing machine and the more you learn about what your unique body needs in order for it to function at optimum the easier it will be to boost that resting metabolic rate. Let me know if I can help you in any of these areas.