After weeks of frustration trying to lose weight I decided to get a metabolic assessment at my club. The goal of the test is to find two points in my metabolism. One point is my base rate, which is the rate at which my body is the most efficient at burning fat. The second point is my threshold which is point where my body is most inefficient at burning fat. By knowing these two points, I can see how my body responds to exercise and I can loose fat more efficiently by making my workouts more efficient.
Metabolism Testing
To find my resting metabolic rate all I had to do was sit in a chair and breathe normally through my mouth while wearing a mask. The expelled air is a mixture of oxygen and carbon dioxide which when analyzed tells your resting metabolic rate. The resting metabolic rate is how many calories you body needs to support your vital organs. So if all you did is sit and breathe all day, the number of calories your body burned in a day would be your resting metabolic rate (RMR). Once you know your resting metabolic rate you can add the number of calories you burn everyday based on your lifestyle. A “very light” lifestyle means you site all day, “light” lifestyle is equivalent to standing all day. Moderate lifestyle would be standing with some physical labor. A heavy lifestyle means heavy physical labor.
Why Do You Need to Know Your Metabolic Rate
Weight management (maintaining a healthy weight) is a very simple formula — Calories in must equal Calories out. Calories out is measured as your metabolic rate which is how many calories you burn in a day or for a given activity. Your daily calorie burn rate is equal to the calories you burn at rest (such as while you are sleeping or sitting) + calories you burn doing your daily activities (this includes what your do around the house as well as at work or school) + any calories you burn with exercise (this would be exercise that is not part of your normal day). Add these up and you can find out how many calories you burn that day. Once you know calories out then you can maintain your weight by counting the calories in — that is, the calories in the food you eat that day. Knowing your BMI is also important.
Knowing your resting metabolic weight is important, too. Remember, your resting metabolic rate is how much energy (calories) your body needs to support your vital organs. If you eat fewer calories than your body needs to support your vital organs your body may sense that it is in trouble and respond by getting rid of lean muscle instead of burning fat. In other words, your body will try to get rid of weight so it won’t have to work so hard. By going on a diet that is few calories than your resting metabolic rate can cause you not to lose weight because your body will store the food thinking it is in trouble.
[quote]If you are an adult on a very low calorie diet—less than 1200 calories a day—you may not be losing weight because your body is storying the food you are eating as fat. [/quote]
The Results of My Metabolism Testing
After the resting test, I got on a treadmill to find out my exercise metabolic rate. By knowing these metabolic rates, I can figure out how many calories I can eat each day and lose weight. I also found out at what level of exercise my body quits burning fat efficiently.
My resting metabolic rate is 1127 calories. My lifestyle calories based on a light lifestyle is 451 calories. So the number of calories I can eat each day and maintain my weight at my current lifestyle is 1578. So the next trick is to figure out how I can use my metabolic rates to lose weight, how to lose fat instead of muscle and how to burn fat more efficiently.