Understanding your metabolic needs is key to success in your health and fitness journey. Many people spend a lot of energy and time estimating energy requirements through predictive equations without having concrete goals. Therefore, this often leads to confusion and frustration when trying to lose weight, build muscle, improve hormone health, etc. However, this is where metabolic testing comes in!
At Nutrition HealthWorks, we can help determine your correct energy intake to properly fuel your body throughout different life stages. Because your metabolism evolves throughout the life span, it is vital to know how these changes are impacting your health and weight management goals. Our registered dietitians understand the importance of metabolism in your health journey, and metabolic testing can help enhance efficiency with these goals.
What is Metabolic Testing?
To break it down simply, metabolic testing is a test that is performed using a metabolic testing machine that involves breathing into the mouthpiece for approximately 10 minutes. This machine utilizes indirect calorimetry, which involves the measurement of gasses during the respiration process. Metabolic testing is easily accessible and a great option for individuals to know more about their resting metabolic rate.
Did You Know That Many Factors are Affecting Your Metabolism at Any Given Time?
Some of these factors include age, muscle mass, thermogenic effect of food, activity level and type of activity, and sleep habits. With all these factors impacting your metabolic health, it can be challenging to estimate your dietary needs at any given time without more specific evidence to support your nutritional needs.
Who Benefits from Metabolic Testing?
The best part about metabolic testing is that it is not only targeted to one specific population. Everyone has a metabolism, and it changes year by year. Therefore, it can be used as a vital tool for almost everyone!
You may consider metabolic testing if you are:
- Struggling to lose or gain weight
- An athlete looking to enhance athletic performance
- A female experiencing hormone-related changes causing weight gain
- An individual looking to get back into a workout routine
- Trying to build lean muscle mass
- Trying to gain knowledge about your dietary needs
- An individual trying to manage chronic diseases
A deeper look into metabolic testing throughout the life stages
Metabolic testing can support people throughout different stages of life. One such example of this is for our perimenopausal and menopausal-aged women. With this life stage, factors such as hormonal changes and weight redistribution can make eating challenging. Having your metabolism tested can be highly effective in helping to determine how your energy needs may be changing during this time. For example, metabolic testing can help determine whether you may be eating too little, which often halts weight management progress. Because women’s health can be such an intricate and challenging time with many changes, having more nutrition knowledge to support your goals will lead to greater success and empowerment.
- Future weight fluctuations
- Blood sugar management and insulin resistance
- Cholesterol and overall heart health
- Utilization of our body’s natural hormones
- Gut health management
- Lean muscle mass to fat mass ratio
- Inflammatory processes
Although nutrition and health can be a very complex and intricate balance, the more knowledge we can obtain will help us understand our individual needs. Testing our metabolism is one such piece of this greater puzzle to gain more knowledge and understanding of your body. No two bodies are alike. Therefore, metabolic needs will be drastically different for each person. While working with one of our registered dietitians, we can perform the metabolic test and then also guide each person in how these results impact their own personal health goals through a food-first approach.
To schedule a metabolic test with our Nutrition HealthWorks team, please check out our website or call 704-380-4655.
Chelsea McKinney
MS, RD, LDN
Chelsea is a registered and licensed dietitian with a Bachelor’s in Science from The University of Maryland and completed her dietetic internship from Rutgers University… READ MORE