So, you’re a Life Time Fitness member and weight loss is your goal. Regardless whether your weight loss goal is a little or a lot, it’s important to know what assessments provide you with the best information needed to reach your goal. LifeLab assessments are focused on finding the most efficient way for you to shed those extra pounds. The science based assessments help take the guess work out of weight loss and provide an accurate calorie intake and expenditure plan so your workouts have a purpose and your meals make sense.
The first step with any weight loss program is to determine your overall health and fitness starting point and establish a reasonable weight loss goal. It’s pretty hard to develop a plan if you do not know how much you should lose. The FitPoint assessment would be the first assessment to start with to help set a weight loss goal if you don’t have one. The assessment measures your current weight, body fat percentage, cardiovascular, strength, and flexibility level. Based on these results your FitPoint report will identify what is the ideal weight and body composition for you. One of Life Time’s fitness professionals can administer the FitPoint and review the report with you to determine reasonable weight loss goals.
The next step is to determine what’s going on inside of your body. I’m sure that at some point in your life you have had the wonderful experience of balancing your bank account. If you don’t know how much is going into the account, balancing it becomes pretty difficult. Weight loss is not that much different. You need to know how many calories should be deposited in your account (or body) and how many need to come out of your account. This is where the resting metabolic rate (CaloriePoint) assessment comes in. A CaloriePoint assessment determines how many calories you need to take in and expend each day. This test measures the amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide you use at rest which is important because your body burns 5 calories for ever liter of oxygen you consume. Comparing the amount of oxygen used to the amount of carbon dioxide produced during a resting state determines the percentage of calories coming from fat vs. carbohydrates. Typical equations to determine your caloric needs can be off by as much as 15-20%, and will not tell you what percentage of your resting calories are coming from fat, which is an important number when formulating a weight loss plan.
You also need to know how much is going out of the account to successfully balance it. An exercise metabolic rate (CardioPoint) assessment is better than your accountant at determining what is going out and where it is coming from. This exercise assessment determines the number of calories, amount of fat and amount of carbohydrates you are using at a specific heart rate. This is important especially for weight loss.
Once you determine how many calories your body can burn while at rest and when exercising and what a healthy realistic weight goal should be you can start to create an energy deficit program.
A desirable weight loss program should meet the following guidelines established by The American College of Sports Medicine:
1) Do not eat less than 1200 kcal/day for normal adults and allow a proper distribution of foods to meet nutritional requirements.
2) Create a negative caloric balance (not to exceed 500 to 1000 kcal/day), resulting in gradual weight loss.
3) Have an exercise program that promotes a daily caloric expenditure of more than 300 kcal.
The National Weight Control Registry found that 89% of people who lost 30 or more pounds and kept it off for at least one year accomplished their goals through a combination of diet and exercise - only 10% succeeded using diet alone and only 1% using exercise alone.
Skip Gagnon is a Metabolic Specialist at the Life Time Fitness in Westminster CO.
