09/01/2021
How much you need to eat to support your fitness goals depends on a number of factors! Understanding how your body burns energy throughout the day is a helpful starting point.
š„ Basal Metabolic Rate - The calories that your body burns at rest, necessary to support proper functioning. Your BMR is surprisingly high, often accounting for around 70% of total energy expenditure.
š„ Thermic Effect of Food - It takes energy to digest the food you eat. This is known as TEF and is normally around 10% of your BMR.
š„ Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis - NEAT is the reason we emphasize the importance of being active throughout the day, and this number will vary depending on how much you walk, fidget, and move outside the gym. It can be as high as 15% of your energy expenditure.
š„ Exercise Energy Expenditure - While exercise is what everyone turns to when they want to burn calories, it actually makes up a very small amount of total energy expenditure (5-10%, with the exception of athletes engaged in a lot of high intensity training).
What lessons can you take from this knowledge? Your body needs a certain amount of calories to survive, daily activity matters, and while exercise only makes up a small amount of energy expenditure, it does have incredible benefits such as building lean mass, supporting healthy hormones and metabolism, and increasing immunity.
For some help understanding the quantity and quality of nutrition that will support your goals, find an OPEX Gym near you.
