BMR and Muscle Mass Play a Vital Role in Weight Control

The biggest secret to permanent weight control is to maintain a high Basal Metabolic Rate. BMR simply means the ticking of all the organs, tissues and cells within the body. This must be kept at a high rate. One of the biggest factors determining the rate of BMR is the amount of muscle tissue in your body as compared to the amount of fat tissue.

Lean people with very low percentage of fat on their body have a high BMR. Most of their body is composed of muscle tissue. Muscle is active or working tissue and this makes the BMR high. Those who have a large percentage of fat in their body have a low BMR as fat is almost inactive and sleeping tissue.

Those who are lean must not over indulge in fatty foods and deposit fat unnecessarily and spoil their body composition and BMR. Those who are already overweight or obese must make a very serious commitment to avoid fatty foods and eat correctly and correct this body composition. If however you just go on crash diets, skip meals and continue to indulge on fatty foods you will continue to have a weight problem.

Balancing every meal with carbohydrate and protein food is the key. Bread, rice, chapatti, cornflakes, oats, idli, dosa, noodles, pasta, corn, jowar, bajra, ragi, etc. are the main carbohydrate suppliers. These should always be balanced with protein foods such as dhals/pulses, milk/curd, egg white, chicken, fish, and meat,etc. Bread and jam, or chapatti and sugar are only carbohydrates and incorrect balance. It has to be bread, jam and a glass of milk, bread and egg or parata and curd or dhal.

A lunch of roti and sabji (vegetables) is not balanced. similarly, veg fried rice or just lime rice and pickle are all incorrect. It has to be roti, dhal and sabji. Veg fried rice with chicken or egg or pulses. Lime rice with dhal or channa curry, etc., so that both carbohydrates and protein foods are combined.

Today most dieters believe that dinner should be just soup and salad. This is very harmful and dangerous. Dinner should be a light meal but still the carbs, protein combination must be kept. We recommend roti, dhal, curds and salads at night. Whole wheat bread, egg white, sprouts or channa salad and a veg soup is an alternative. Non veg is best eaten at lunch time and avoid at dinner as it tends to take a long time to digest and gets deposited as fat when you sleep. However if you eat only grilled chicken and salad for lunch, it is not balanced as the bread (carb) is missing.

The second secret to a high BMR is to eat plenty of salads, fruits and whole grained cereals instead of refined cereals. Rice, white bread, idli, dosa, rava, poha, beaten rice, noodles, pasta, maida, etc. are all refined cereals whereas atta, whole wheat bread, ragi, oats, cornflakes, jowar, bajra, are whole cereals. When the body tries to digest these whole cereals it has to work harder to break down the fiber and therefore the BMR goes up. Similarly when digesting raw salads and fruits instead of cooked veggies and juices the body works harder, burns more calories and has a higher BMR. We recommend 1-2 cups of raw salad daily with lunch and dinner and at least 2 fruits to be eaten, one around 11am and one around 6 pm instead of other fatty snacks.