Sunday morning, I breathed into a tube for 10 minutes and learned that I need more calories than I'm allowing myself every day to keep this Badass humming like a lean machine.
Badass Foodie got the same diagnosis. And who knows? It might be the case for you! Or maybe your metabolism is a lot slower than you're assuming it is, in which case you might need to adjust your eating - and up the ante on your exercise.
No matter which side of the metabolism chart you land on, it's important that you have the right information about how your Badass works. Otherwise you might find yourself feeling frustrated and defeated when your calorie-counting and exercise efforts seem to be going nowhere.
As Badass Foodie, Badass Bertsch and I continue with our metabolism-boosting, clean-eating pact, we figure now is as good a time as any to find out exactly where our metabolism stands. So we turned to Steve Wilkens, owner and trainer at BodyTrac Health & Fitness in Tallahassee.
His fitness business uses the MetaCheck Metabolic Rate Analysis System for clients. It measures a person's oxygen use while at rest to determine the resting metabolic rate. That indicates the basic number of calories a person would need, assuming he or she is at rest all day -- couch potato time.
Add in calories burned doing basic activities like driving, walking to and from the car, getting groceries, etc., plus actual exercise -- and you get a more accurate picture of the number of calories needed to maintain your weight. Then you can deduct or add calories and exercise depending on whether you want to lose weight, gain weight, gain lean muscle mass, etc.
It's not an exact science, but pretty close, Wilkens says.
"There is a direct correlation between oxygen use and metabolic rate," Wilkens said. "And people with similar physical attributes can have metabolic variations of as much as 1,000 calories a day. So it's important to get an accurate measurement of yourself."
He told me one client went to him, frustrated because she wasn't losing weight even while cutting her calories to 1,200 a day. Turns out her resting metabolic rate was low, less than 900 calories a day, so what she really needed was more exercise and strength training AND NOT fewer calories. She needed to focus on increasing her metabolism.
So after breathing into the tube connected to BodyTrac's machine for 10 minutes, I got my official metabolism "reading." To be exact, my body needs close to 1,400 calories just at rest. And if you haven't picked on it by now, I'm never just at rest. The readout said that based on my metabolic rate and age, height and weight, I need 1,918 calories daily just to go about a typical day's light activities, plus 30 minutes of "moderate exercise." Again, if you haven't picked on it by now, I'm more like "intense" exercise for 60 to 90 minutes a day.
So now I know: I need more calories, just like I needed more calories when I trained for the Chicago marathon and found my weight creeping up in spite of all those long runs. After the marathon, on the advice of my trainer, I added lots of good calories from flaxseed oil, protein, oatmeal, etc, and sure enough the weight fell off within 12 weeks.
Guess what I bought Sunday after my metabolism test? Flaxseed oil and oatmeal. I'm going to add them back into my daily eating and see how my Badass responds.
If you live in or near Tallahassee, I encourage you to invest the $50 in the BodyTrac test because it will go a long way toward helping you go a long way in your Badass Journey. If not, ask around to see if gyms near you have similar tests.
Until then, remember these metabolism-boosting basics:
1. Eat five to six smaller (clean) meals, not three big ones: Every time you eat, your metabolism hums faster to digest the food.
2. Build lean muscle: Muscle burns more calories than fat. The more muscle you have, the more you burn even at rest.
3. Add more protein to your diet: It takes longer to digest, and keeps your insulin more level, which helps with metabolism.
4. Exercise more, and just move more: Take the stairs instead of elevator, add regular weight training and cardio, fidget at your desk, etc. Every bit of movement helps.
Coming tomorrow: Badass CEO's Favorites, Summer 2010 Edition
