Truthfully, I think 5’10″ is almost bang-on correct…but who doesn’t want to be a little taller.

Good things happen to the tall people.

Better jobs, Better at sports, girls tend to like taller guys (personal observation, plus its the only way I can rationalize Jeff Goldbloom ability to get acting roles), and guys tend to like tall girls (America’s Next Top Model)

I’m stereotyping of course…but you get the idea

And to rub it in even more, taller people get to eat more without gaining fat.

BREAKING NEWS! ==> The absolute best way to boost your metabolism is to grow 4 inches!

Your metabolic rate is tied very closely to your lean body  mass. Forget the “boost your metabolism wth food” stories – it is the activity of your internal organs and muscles that largely dictate how many calories you burn in a day.

AND, your lean body mass is most closely related to your height.

From the experiments I did back when I had an Exercise Physiology lab at my disposal I found that for guys roughly around 6 feet in height, for every inch gained or lost, lean body mass changed by approximately 7 pounds.

So for roughly the same body type a 6’1″ guy will have about 7 more pounds of lean body mass than a 6’0″ guy.

And this fact plays a big role in how much you can eat!

OK, example time…

Let’s start with a 175 pound man with 12% body fat..thus having around 154 pounds of Lean body mass.

Using the Katch and McArdle formula for estimating resting metabolic rate [370 X (21.6 X LBM)] we can get a rough estimate of this persons resting metabolic rate.

When we plug these numbers into the above formula we get a resting metabolic rate of 1,882 Calories in a 24 hour period.

Add in an activity factor of 1.2 for daily activity (moving around) and we can estimate that a 175 pound man would need about 2,258 Calories to maintain his current weight at his current activity level.

Now, take that same man, same body type and make him 6’2″ and use my equation of an extra 6.6 pounds of lean body mass per inch and you get a 205 pound man with 12% body fat and 180 pounds Lean Body Mass.

Using the same formula we find that this new 6’2″ man has a resting metabolic rate of 2,141.2 Calories and using the same activity factor would need about 2,570 Calories to maintain his current weight at his current activity level.

Bottom line, just by being tall, the 6’2″ man gets to eat an extra 310 Calories per day.

And this example was for a modest 4 inches.

If anything this should certainly make a 5’2″ women feel a little better about her 5’10″ friend who can ‘eat what ever she wants and still stay thin’

It’s not fair, but the simple truth is, your height does play a role in how much you can, or can’t eat and still stay lean.

(just another reason to hate your tall friends)

BP