Where is that wondrous BMR calculator?

April 21, 2009 12:48 PM

Please find my super-comprehensive BMR calculator?

A few years ago, I found a really terrific basal metabolic rate calculator. It took into account lots of stuff that the standard calculators don't: Beyond age, height, weight, gender, this thing considered whether you're pregnant or breastfeeding, how much time you spend at various activity levels, and even whether you're an amputee. As I recall, the web form had about three pages of questions before you got to your results.

Help, help! Where is this wondrous calculator? Does it even still exist?

posted by Andrhia to health & fitness (5 answers total)

http://www.dietitian.com/calcbody.php?
posted by marteki at 1:03 PM on April 21, 2009

Hmm, that's not exactly the one I was thinking of but it's very close indeed. Thanks!

(Though a bit of WTF in that one -- it only lets you enter a target body fat percentage of... 19? Which is pretty much only possible for a female athlete, as I understand it.)
posted by Andrhia at 1:13 PM on April 21, 2009

...actually, scratch that. This one does a lot of fancy stuff, but none of it is your BMR. It does suggested calories, but that's not what I'm looking for...
posted by Andrhia at 1:16 PM on April 21, 2009

*Mods, please delete if this isn't appropriate since it doesn't answer the question*

IAPT (I am a personal trainer) and I'm wondering what you want the information for, since it makes a difference: if you're looking for very basic info on what your BMR is, a form like the one you're looking for will do the trick, but they only work for the middle of the curve. Most of them will give you anywhere up to a 30% error. (The one linked above was off by 20% for me, and I am male, not freakishly fit, or funny-shaped. From my experience the error for women tends to be higher).

To get a really accurate baseline you'll have to go get tested; it should cost anywhere from $250 for just BMR up to $1000 for the full-geek, VO2max, AT threshold, I'm-trying-to-shave-2-seconds-off-my-Ironman-time, yadda yadda craziness.
posted by dolface at 4:00 PM on April 21, 2009

Nah, dolface, your comment is OK by me...

I'm mostly looking for the purposes of random data, because I like looking at things like that and seeing how the input changes the results. It's a geek thing, I guess...

From a more practical point of view, though, I'm working out and doing calorie-counting right now, and want to be sensible about it. I know the general "don't eat under 1200 calories per day" guideline. I assume that's based on a typical BMR, so I'm trying to get a general sense of what my own BMR probably is in order to find a more personalized lower limit. (When I'm eating healthy food all day, I sometimes find myself much lower than that.) Then I can make sure to eat at least THAT much food in a day and be confident I'm not doing any crazy bad-for-you crash-dieting.

I hear you on the roughness of the estimates; I do believe the web tool I was looking for output ranges, and that's even better, so far as I'm concerned. :)
posted by Andrhia at 4:30 PM on April 21, 2009