To correct for these expenses, we could measure your energy expenditure in bed just after you woke up from an eight-hour sleep in a dark 70°F room following a twelve-hour fast. That measurement, your basal metabolic rate (BMR), would be roughly 10 percent lower than your RMR (in our example, 1,530 calories). Your BMR is the energy you use to maintain the most basic processes of your body necessary to stay alive in a nearly coma-like state.
