Depending on the time of day, who measures, my mood, and who’s asking I will tell you that my height is anywhere between 5’10 and 5’11
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
Tags: boost your metabolism, Height, Metabolism
Totally unfair… do platform shoes count?
HAHA!
hehehe… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NvgLkuEtkA
It only makes sense! As a 5’1″ tall woman, I know that I can’t eat as much as my taller friends (and DH). That’s why 6 meals a day is too hard for shorter/thinner people – the tiny little meals I’d need to have to fit in my daily calorie allotment makes them too small to manage.
Then again, that 5’9″ woman will never be able to weigh 110 pounds without looking anorexic. So maybe life is fair?
No wonder my husband can eat whatever he wants – totally unfair!…haha.
Brad,
I tried to calculate my RMB using the formula you gave and came up with a very high number. I googled the formula and came up with this:
“BMR = 370 + 26.1 * LBM in KG
or if you’re too lazy to convert your lbm to kg:
BMR = 370 + 11.9 * LBM in lbs” Is this correct? It seems to be.
Found this formula somewhere else:
BMR = 370 + (9.79759519 X Lean Mass in pounds); seems to be a little discrepancy between this the previous one I found – based on a KG to lb conversion, the 11.9 multiplier would make the most sense.
That’s why being 6’6 rocks! Seriously though, I have a substantially easier time being lean then I do gaining muscle. I have to pound down the calorie to even gain a few pounds.
[...] source_ [...]
It’s not entirely unfair – as a tall person, I can attest that being hungry at the end of the day, even after eating 2000 calories or so, is no picnic, either! Not to mention the guilt that you’re eating sooooo much, compared to your shorter, smaller friends.
YEAH! Another reason to love being 6’5
@Brad
I wish…
B
@Wazzup
Nice find!
B
@Liz
It’s funny, no one ever seems to consider height.
B
@Anna
Totally, this is a huge part of the battle of the sexes. When you consider at times there can be over a foot difference in height, and different LBM, by the end of the day the difference can be phenomenal.
B
@John
I’d stick with the metric system, it’s easier to divide by 2.2 then it is to rewrite the equation.
B
@Jimmy Smith
I’ve seen you eat, so I know you are telling the truth
The difference between you and me (just based on height) is probably 50 pounds of LBM…and that’s not including those freaky big arms of yours!
B
@Becky
True, but I bet there’s a bunch of 5’1″ women who hate you right now
B
@Achintya
I’ll admit…I’d love to know what it feels like to be that tall..even for a day.
B
[...] just realized after writing that last post that we have pretty much debunked the idea that a pound of muscle burns 50 calories a [...]
I love the platform shoes idea. What a thought!
My husband is 6’4″ and it used to drive me nuts the way he can chow down. But then I’m 5’8″ and I know plenty of women who wish they had my height! Petites have challenges of their own, yes?
Lani
High metabolism is fine when food is abundant, but when food is scarce it is better to be short. In WWII on the Batton Death March only the short guys survived. The tall guys all died of starvation.
That’s why I’ve always said my 6’5 is the perfect height – you get the benefits of being tall, but you’re far enough away from the doorways (in Australia they are 6’7) to not be worried about hitting your head like Jimmy Smith would. You also get to laugh at the BMI that tells you you’re obese at 115 kg, even though you’re 12% body fat
.
Great article Brad. Makes sense why I eat so much more than my 5’5 wife, yet she gains weight while I lose it… Ok, I also do ESE and she doesn’t, so that might have something to do with it