Your resting metabolic rate (RMR) is one of the easiest measurements to come by during a New Leaf assessment. It’s also one of the most important. Your RMR is the number that comes from sitting in that comfy chair, breathing, and taking it easy. What it reveals is the number of calories your body requires to stay alive.

What’s the big deal about knowing how many calories your body burns as it goes through its daily work of sleeping, eating, breathing, and so on? Consider this: Let’s say your RMR is 1300 calories. If we take into account your overall lifestyle expenditure, we figure out your body needs 1690 calories to maintain its weight. If you eat 1500 calories, and you burn 500 during a workout, you’ve got 1000 calories available for your body to do its thing—and that’s 300 fewer than your RMR. While that deficit may sound like the key to losing weight, it’s actually a short, straight route to killing your metabolism.

When your caloric balance drops below your RMR, your body goes into starvation mode, slowly burning calorie-hungry muscle mass while clinging to calorie-dense fat tissue. You may lose some weight at first, but in the not-too-long run, you’ll have trained your body to burn calories very, very slowly. Achieving your healthy weight will get tougher and tougher to do.

The key to losing weight safely, effectively, and quickly is to eat enough nutrient-rich foods to stay above your RMR, but below your total daily caloric needs.

Your RMR also identifies what fuel your body’s engine is tuned to burn. For instance, if your body burns a lot of sugar while you’re at ease, that’s certainly the fuel your body will turn to when it’s doing the harder work of working out. By putting your New Leaf metabolic assessment results to work, you can train your body to burn more fat, more often—both at work and at rest.

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