I mentioned that I went down to Georgia on Thursday of last week to visit Amy and Lyndsey, and to have metabolic testing down with Amy at her business, Fit Lab, Inc.
I’m so excited to share this process with you because I have learned so much. But first, I’m going to let Amy tell you a little bit about the process and what she was able to help me figure out.
Erin asked me if I could explain a little more about what tests I did for her at FitLab when she came and did what we called a Metabolic Assessment, so here goes! Basically, most people think of “metabolism” as just how fast a body can burn through the food that they put in. Skinny people have “great metabolisms” and overweight people must have “bad metabolisms”, right? Well, no…actually, that’s not true at all. Metabolism is really just a simple math problem: calories in and calories out. And to break it down more simply, a calorie is really just a unit of energy. If you put in energy that doesn’t get used up, it gets stored for later.
When Erin came to me a couple weeks ago, I told her I was going to do two assessments, one to determine how many calories her body burns do her basic biological functions (breathing, heart beating, digestion, etc.) called the Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) and one to determine how many calories her body burns when she is exercising or her Exercise Metabolic Rate (EMR). By knowing these two key pieces of information, we can literally tell her the amount of food she should take in to give her body everything it needs and exactly how many calories she needs to burn during exercise to hit her goal numbers for calories in and calories out. By knowing the number of calories she burns during exercise, she can factor in how much she needs to burn off when she eats too much or how much she needs to put back when she burns too much.
Some key things to know about weight loss:
A. Metabolism is based on several things: (1) the amount of lean muscle mass a person has (muscle burns fat, fat doesn’t burn fat), (2) how many calories your body uses to function biologically and to move you around throughout your day, and (3) how well your body burns calories during exercise and other activities.
B. 1 lb of fat = 3500 calories…so that means someone who has gained 10 lbs has actually taken in 35,000 calories that the body didn’t need. If you know this simple fact, it’s really helpful in your quest for weight loss because it’s as simple as saying: there are 7 days in a week. 7 days divided by 3500 calories means that if I get rid of 500 calories per day (either by diet or exercise or a combination of both) I could lose 1 lb of fat per week. BUT what that also means is that if you do great one day and burn off that 500 calories one day and you eat an extra 500 the next day you will see…NO change. Again, it’s back to the math…which is why knowing your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) and knowing your Exercise Metabolic Rate (EMR) is so important if you really want to change your life.
C. A 5’5 woman who weighs 130 lbs should know that when she gets up and moves around she is not going to burn the same amount of weight as a 5’11 woman who weighs 190. Basically, it would be like giving the woman who is 5’5/130 an additional 60 pound backpack to put on and carry around all day. The larger woman is burning more calories just carrying her body weight around. So as a person losing weight, their metabolism is decreasing because it’s not carrying around as much weight. That’s why it gets harder and harder as you get to those last 5-10 lbs you want to lose. That’s also why two people can work out together and one person has great results and the others has a few pounds or maybe even gains. Their bodies, during exercise, are doing two TOTALLY different things.
The problem comes in when people don’t know how to measure how many calories they actually need so either take in too few or too many. Some people who consume too few calories can actually gain weight because the environment of the body feels threatened (as in, I’m starving so I need to store anything I get), some people shrivel up to nothing, some people notice they are extremely fatigued and some people notice a combination of these things. When the body feels “safe”, it won’t fight to store fat.
Now, what do I do about it:
There are a couple things I’d suggest unless you can come get your Metabolic Assessment done.
1. I have all of my clients sign up for www.mydailyplate.com which a free website that calculates what you are eating. You can’t possibly know if you are taking in enough or too many calories unless you are really paying attention to it. Regardless if you “don’t like to count calories”…well, quite honestly…too bad if you want to lose weight. This website is GREAT at showing you what the nutritional breakdown of the foods you eat, how many calories you are taking in, and where some of your “problem areas” might be.
WARNING: It often factors calorie needs wrong because it’s going off a generic formula. When I had Erin sign up, we knew EXACTLY how many calories she burns so I put in that “Calorie Goal” for her to hit every day. Rather than using their recommended calories when you sign up, I think it would be better just to log what you currently eat and then start looking for things that are too high in fat, sodium, cholesterol, or sugar. If you noticed you eat 1900 calories a day on average right now, start by just bumping down the number of calories you take in a day by 100-200 calories.
2. Get a heart rate monitor (our clients use the Polar RS300X but other models will do and they are a good company) sooner than later. It will give you a better calorie burn estimate than using the treadmill dashboard which can’t really distinguish your 5’2 frame from a 6’4 man’s frame. Whether you know your Exercise metabolism or not, this is still a very helpful tool
If you have any questions, feel free to check out our website at www.fitlabinc.com. There is a “Contact Us” form and I’ll try to get back to you as soon as I possibly can.
Now here’s what I’m doing:
1. I’m tracking my calories on My Daily Plate. I can have 1600 calories per day to lose weight. That’s a lot of calories and sometimes I struggle to actually eat enough. It’s good because I cook with Cooking Light recipes and all of the nutritional information is provided there. In fact, some of the Cooking Light recipes are already loaded into the My Daily Plate system. Most brand name foods are in the system and when I log what I ate, I get to see the breakdown of protein, carbs, fat, sodium, etc. Amy has given me specific goals for every day in these particular areas and I can track them so easily. If it looks like I’m a little high on sodium and a little low on protein, I can adjust what I eat for the rest of the day.
Also- if I decide to eat a cupcake and that takes 450 of my calories for the day, I just know that maybe I won’t eat as much at supper time. Or I may have to give up something else throughout the day.
Using My Daily Plate has completely stopped me from mindlessly eating.
2. I also no longer mindlessly exercise. No little walks with Hudson and the stroller without tracking it and paying attention to my heart rate. I know exactly how many extra calories I burn every day now. (“Extra calories” is referring to the times when I deliberately exercise. This doesn’t include the calories that I burn by chasing Hudson and cleaning the house.)
I have a fancy schmancy Polar heart rate monitor and watch so I can constantly log my exercise times and it tracks my calories burned. It also lets me know if my heart rate is in the right zone.
Amy created an interval training program for me and plugged it into my watch. During the testing, she was able to determine at which point my heart rate stops my body from burning fat and basically just starts burning muscle. That’s not good. I need my muscle. So she created this program for me and when I’m at the gym on the treadmill and want to do the interval workout, I have two target heart rate zones. I spend 5 minutes in zone 1 and 3 minutes in zone 2. I do this anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour. And so far I love it.
I really don’t like to exercise, but this flies by because I’m concentrating so hard on what my body is doing.
The best part about this program after one week is knowing that it was catered to me specifically. This is for my body. This gives my body what it needs. The right number of calories. Exercise at the right intensity.
I’m excited to update you all as the weeks go on and I start seeing results. I’m pretty sure at that point I’ll be saying that the results are the best part about this program.
I’ve decided to give myself two weeks before I weigh myself again. I’m doing this because Amy upped my daily calories by 600-700 calories. That’s a lot! I’m eating so much every day and in the beginning it may cause me to actually gain a little weight before my body figures out what is going on. I wasn’t eating enough before and could never figure out why I was so hungry but couldn’t drop the pounds. So I’m giving my body two weeks to figure this whole thing out and I’m going to keep feeling good in the mean time.
Honestly, I feel so much better physically from eating more. I’m not so stuffed that I can’t move. I actually feel more lean.
I’m beyond excited to see what happens!
I know that some of you have questions and one of them is “does this mean you don’t believe in Weight Watchers?” I’ll answer as many questions as you ask in the comments and if I can’t answer them, I bet Amy will answer them, too.
p.s. If you want to see how Amy achieves gorgeous hair and helped me learn how to try to do the same with my hair, watch her Vlog tutorial here!
