How Calorie Restriction Affects Your Metabolism

Resting metabolic rate (RMR) is the number of calories you use while at rest—just lying around doing nothing. It’s the calories your body uses to operate your internal organs and your brain, etc. From the second you open your eyes, the calories you burn are considered activity-related calories.

The concern in trying to restrict calories as in the CALERIE Study is how that will affect RMR. Will it be proportional or will RMR go down too much, leaving you feeling too tired to do anything?

Researchers examined the data in a subset of normal-weight subjects over a year, looking at tissue losses and metabolic adaptations that contributed to the reduction in RMR. In other words, which organs or systems were impacted the most to lower RMR? They calculated the differences before and after the secondary study to see what changed, and found that the RMR was reduced by only 101 calories per day.

There’s more to come from the CALERIE study. One thing for sure is that a small reduction of 12% to 15% in calories every day can do you a whole lot of good—no special diets necessary—without losing your get up and go.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: Int J Obes (Lond). 2022 Feb 18. doi: 10.1038/s41366-022-01090-7.