Most of us follow fitness and nutrition plans built for a broad group of people rather than ones personalized to our individual bodies. But what if you could stop guessing at the actions that will lead to meaningful change and start planning with data that’s unique to you?
The two metabolic assessments available at Life Time make that possible. The Active Metabolic Assessment can help you train smarter, measuring how much oxygen you consume and how much carbon dioxide you exhale while exercising. The Resting Metabolic Assessment can help you fuel smarter, measuring your metabolism while your body is at rest.
Together, they can provide a personalized metabolic blueprint you can use to customize your approach to both your training and nutrition. Knowing which one to start with, or whether to do both, comes down to your goals.
The Assessments At a Glance
The Active Metabolic Assessment
The Active Metabolic Assessment is performed on a piece of cardio equipment — typically a treadmill — under the guidance of a Dynamic Personal Trainer. It measures exactly how much oxygen you consume and how much carbon dioxide you expire as you exercise at varying intensities. This data reveals your individual heart-rate zones as well as other markers, including your aerobic base, anaerobic threshold, and VO2 max.
“Knowing these allows us to customize your fitness efforts, specifically when it comes to cardiovascular exercise, in a way that allows you to get the most out of it,” says Danny King, Master Trainer, and director of performance and recovery at Life Time.
(Learn more: “What to Know About the Active Metabolic Assessment at Life Time.”)
The Resting Metabolic Assessment
The Resting Metabolic Assessment measures your metabolism while you’re at rest. It’s performed under the guidance of a Dynamic Nutrition Coach while you’re seated in a reclined position and calmly breathing through a mask. Using advanced breath analysis technology, it measures your oxygen intake and carbon dioxide output to determine how many calories your body burns at rest and whether it’s drawing primarily from fat or carbohydrates.
“The goal of the test is to determine how your body uses energy at rest so you can understand your baseline metabolism and how to fuel appropriately for your goals,” explains King.
(Learn more: “All About the Resting Metabolic Assessment at Life Time.”)
Choose the Assessment That’s Right for Your Goals
When to Consider the Active Metabolic Assessment
You want your workouts to be more effective and efficient.
Knowing your personal heart-rate zones allows you to understand exactly which intensities to train in to reach your specific goals. This brings purpose to every fitness session.
Fat loss is your primary goal.
When fat loss is your goal, you’ll want to spend the majority of your cardio time in zone 1 and zone 2, where your body tends to rely more on fat as a fuel source (you can still tap into higher zones in intervals). An Active Metabolic Assessment provides your zone data so you know where to focus your time and effort.
Building muscle is a focus.
Your heart-rate zone data can help you understand how much cardiovascular exercise to include in your routine so it doesn’t compete with your muscle-building goals. This balance can be hard to judge on your own.
Endurance is a priority.
Training at the appropriate intensities allows you to optimize your aerobic capacity while also avoiding overtraining. Your zones give you a clear framework for pushing and pacing.
When to Consider the Resting Metabolic Assessment
You want to understand how to fuel appropriately for your body and your goals.
The test uses breath analysis technology to measure how many calories your body burns at rest and how your body uses fat and carbohydrates as fuel. Understanding your baseline metabolism can help you understand how to fuel appropriately, rather than relying on general calorie or macro targets.
Body-composition outcomes or long-term results are part of the picture.
Your data provides a personalized foundation that can guide your nutrition and training decisions. Many people have used their results to inform when to push harder during workouts, recover faster, lose body fat, gain muscle, or increase their energy.
You think stress may be affecting your results.
If the test reveals your body is burning a lot of carbohydrates at rest, it could signal that you’re spending too much time in fight-or-flight mode. If your resting metabolism is too high, it’s an indication your body is likely running on overdrive and is at risk of burnout. It can also be a sign that there’s a metabolic stressor driving inflammation and short-term insulin resistance.
Cravings are prevalent and difficult to manage.
Your results can reveal how your metabolism is trending. A high-sugar-burn pattern may explain strong cravings for carbohydrates or sugar. From there, a Dynamic Nutrition Coach can provide tactical steps to help curb the cravings, along with advice for supporting long-term metabolism change that corrects unwanted patterns.
When to Consider Both Assessments
You want to take the guesswork out of both your training and nutrition.
The two assessments complement each other. The Active Metabolic Assessment informs the types of workouts that match your goals and supports your efforts to achieve them by training in your personalized heart-rate zones. The Resting Metabolic Assessment translates your metabolism into a nutrition and recovery plan.
Your overall health is a priority, and you want a full metabolic picture.
When you pair how your body performs during exercise with how it operates at rest, you get a complete, personalized view. Because fitness and nutrition are interconnected, optimizing both gives you a stronger foundation for your overall health. That combination lets you customize your approach in ways that match how your body actually works.
Still Not Sure Where to Start?
Below is a straightforward way to decide. You can also book a Goal Setting Session with a Dynamic Personal Trainer to discuss which assessment(s) might be best for you and how they can fit into your plan.
- If your priority is exercise performance or training strategy, start with an Active Metabolic Assessment.
- If your priority is optimizing your nutrition, metabolism, or recovery, start with a Resting Metabolic Assessment.
- If you want the most complete view of your metabolic health so you can optimize your fitness and nutrition, consider doing the Active Metabolic Assessment and the Resting Metabolic Assessment.
