My resting metabolic rate, according to every calculator I found online, is around 2,050, but the "weight times 11" has me at 2,310. One example is here:
It doesn't really matter what a calculator says your RMR is. What works for YOU is what matters. You may need more or less cals. I know my RMR is about 500 cals below what the calculators say.
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"Focus on making the 5 lifts stronger and getting enough food. There will be plenty of time to worry about glycemic indexes, PERs, and Bulgarian Split squats later. Much later."-Mark Rippetoe
There are compromises no matter what you choose. In Lift Like a Man, Cassandra and I are considering using three different RMR-estimating calculations, just because different formulas seem to work better for women in different body-comp ranges. So a lean and athletic woman wouldn't use the same formula as a sedentary but normal-weight woman, and a very heavy woman would use a third calculation.
The one I used in New Rules is a variation on the one from TAP. With TAP, I started with the Harris-Benedict formula, and then tried to make it very simple and general, with easy-to-calculate numbers for the math-challenged (like me!).
One of my goals was to show how to age and activity levels change the calorie calculations. I'm working off very distant memories here, but it seemed to me at the time (c. 2000) that nobody was telling guys that one size doesn't fit all, that you have to adjust your calories to your circumstances.
I wasn't yet using the term energy flux, but I was thinking along those lines, trying to show how caloric intake should move in tandem with workouts, rather than in opposition to them.
In Muscle Revolution, Chad Waterbury has a more comprehensive take on manipulating macronutrients and calories.
And in Lift Like a Man, we'll have what I hope is the most sophisticated system you'll find in a mass-market workout-and-diet book.
And yet, we'll still be guessing. Metabolism is a moving target. We know some general facts -- exercise increases it, while energy deficits slow it down -- but everything beyond that involves some conjecture.
I agree that the actual metabolism number for a person is, at best, a close estimation. I just wanted to point out what the calculators online were telling me, which I use because also don't like having to go through the HB!
One thing I would point out, as a person who has lost 55 pounds over the last 5 months, is that Cosgrove was correct in a recent podcast interview (btw, I have really loved your Fitcast interviews): he says that you can not lose weight without a calorie deficit, period. You HAVE to take in less calories than your body is burning off in a given day. 500 less a day will be a pound of fat lost each week. 1000 less a day will be two pounds off a week. And that math actually works, my weight loss experience showed me that, and it showed me that the online calculators are generally pretty accurate as well (at least for me). I was able, based on those numbers, to predict my weight loss weeks in advance and hit it within a pound or so.
What you seem to be advocating, and I entirely agree, is that you can create this deficit not JUST by eating less than you are now, but also by increasing what your body burns each day. I am sure this is true, but it seems so difficult to measure how much those metabolism boosting methods are helping. How much you are burning from just living, or having a sedentary job stays about the same and has been dialed in pretty closely, so it is easy to just take that, add your ACTUAL exercise calories burned (I use a heart rate monitor) and eat that many calories for maintenance (or whatever less you want for weight loss). I lost a lot weight with this method, with my exercise being basketball (which I see as a form of HIIT) and steady-state elliptical (don't tell Alwyn!). I have been lifting for about a month and have those great newbie gains, and am feeling stronger, with more muscle and more strength than I ever have (thanks to you and Alwyn!).
Now that I am lifting, I KNOW there is a metabolic effect, both from the exercise itself, the afterburn and the simple existence of the extra muscle, but I have no way of knowing how much of an effect. So, in order to continue losing fat (still want another 5 to 10 pounds of off) I don't know how much to be eating any more! It is now trial and error, adding calories back on slowly and see what works.
So, since I still want to lose a couple of pounds of fat a week (which needs a 1000 calorie deficit) what I am doing is to stick with my method of using the caculators to give me a RMR, add the multiplier for sedentary, then daily add my actual exercise calories each day. BUT, rather than eat 1000 less, I will eat only 500 less, since I know that there is an additional metabolic impact from my weight training that will increase the deficit even more. I will let you know how it goes!
Lou, I am not sure about your RMR calculation
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