Metabolic Testing

Metabolic Testing

Knowing where your metabolism stands is a great place to start when trying to condition it to be faster and more efficient. Having your metabolism tested will allow you to know exactly how many calories you need to eat in order to fuel your body throughout the day, tell you where your body burns calories at specific heartrate zones, and calculate your VO2 max.

Calorie intake is important because not eating enough will slow down your metabolism resulting in weight gain, and overeating will also result in weight gains as well. Where you’re burning calories in your workouts can be tested through an Active Metabolic Assessment, and will tell you out of the five heartrate zones, where your body burns fat most efficiently with specific numbers tailored to your body.

This way, you can eat a proper amount of food to fuel your workouts, and spend your workout time in your fat burning zones without any guessing when you step on the treadmill or other cardio equipment.

Some people eat way too few calories and over exercise at too high of an intensity – resulting in depleted energy levels, and more resistance to fat loss. Your VO2 max is the amount of oxygen that your body takes in when exercising, and is a good indicator of your level of cardiovascular endurance.

More cardio performed at lower zones will grow your aerobic base, which will result in a better VO2 max, and help train your metabolism to stay in fat burning zones much longer as you exercise.

Retesting your metabolism quarterly is recommended so that you can progress your training and continue to shape your metabolism into a fat burning machine inside and outside of the gym.

When you retest after training, your VO2 max should increase resulting in longer workouts. Your fat burning zones should be achievable for longer amounts of time, and your body will burn more fat throughout the day rather than just burning the carbs and sugars that you consume.

If you’re exercising on a budget, try to see if your insurance or health savings accounts will cover your assessments because it’s medical related. There are other methods to testing your metabolism through free online calculators that, although they’re not perfectly accurate, they do provide a much better educated guess on where to start your training.

Don’t rely on fad diets and extreme exercises to lose weight. Instead train your body to work more efficiently and burn fat for you. Metabolic testing takes all the guesswork out of the equation and gives you a strong foundation on which you can succeed.