I'm soooooooo glad you posted about this, RM!!! Thank you for sharing your findings. If you hadn't- I wouldn't have sought someone to do the test and get myself measured. I think knowing EXACTLY the number of calories I need to consume will be very beneficial (for weight loss currently, but also for maintaining weight and when I do another IM I'll know exactly how much to eat to fuel me properly).

So I did the RMR test yesterday.
The test was nothing exciting. Like RM- I had to do some adjusting to make sure the mask had a snug fit (man- that was a little confining). I just sat in a chair with my feet propped up for 15 min. with a mask over my mouth and nose and had to be still and relax and breathe normally. It was interesting, but VERY hard for me to sit still that long. I'm a figdeter, so being still that long was kinda tough.
He e-mailed me my results later this afternoon. Said my RMR was 1383 calories per day. There are 4 factors that go into figuring your daily caloric needs. RMR is one of them. The others are:
1. ADL (activities of daily living- what you burn just going about your normal day- I'm wearing a monitor for a week to measure how many calories I burn just doing normal things- not exercise).
2. TE (thermal effect of digesting, transporting and abosorbing food). Don't know how that's measured- we'll get into that next time.
3. Excercise (what you burn exercising daily)
4. RMR

He also said that depending on where you're at in your monthly cycle, your metabolism can have an increase of about 150 calories- you burn more at mid-cycle. Interesting. I didn't know that. No wonder I want to eat more at certain times of the month.

After I turn in my monitor that's measuring my calories burned through daily activity (non-exercise) we'll figure in exercise and the thermal effect then come up with a number of how many calories to eat daily to lose (and then maintain). I'm very excited. Sometimes too much information is just- well, too much information. But in this case, I think too much information is a good thing. Hopefully it'll get my butt in gear and help me lose this weight that I've been struggling with for a year.

Thanks, RM and rabidgirl for all your help!!!!