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New Member Assessment and Orientation
New members receive a free comprehensive fitness assessment, including weight, height and body fat measurements. Grip strength and flexibility are measured, girth measurements are taken and cardiovascular fitness is assessed. Our Great Start new member orientation includes multiple one-on-one appointments with a fitness specialist. We will provide you with the time, guidance and instruction you need to get you on your way to a safe, scientifically sound, progressive exercise regimen.
Executive Physicals
The executive physical is a comprehensive medical and physical examination directed by a physician on the medical staff at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Hurst-Euless-Bedford and assisted by a fitness center exercise specialist. While anyone can make an appointment for an executive physical, this program is designed to be utilized by employers and their employees, and company executives required to have annual physicals. The examination is scheduled to conveniently fit into a busy executive's workday and may be completed in less than three hours.
Nutritional Evaluations
Members receive a consultation with a dietitian from Texas Health HEB. The evaluation and recommendations are individualized to meet the physical and medical needs of the individual.
Metabolic Rate Testing
Knowing how your metabolism works is essential to creating a plan to live healthy, look better, and perform to full potential. The New Leaf metabolic assessment and training program is based on decades of medical research and proven scientific know-how. Whether you're just starting to exercise or you're training for your next marathon, you can boost your metabolism. You can achieve a goal of better health, fitness, or athletic performance when your exercise and nutrition plans are based on your personal metabolic profile.
What's a metabolic profile? Think of it as a fingerprint. It's unique to you, and it holds the key to creating a successful personal exercise training plan. Your metabolic profile helps your trainer determine how long you should exercise and how intensely. Your profile also provides insight into the nutritional choices that will improve your health, increase your overall fitness, and ultimately enhance your athletic performance.
A metabolic assessment measures several things:
- The amount of calories your body needs to function, including everything from regulating your body's hormones to thinking the thoughts that run through your mind
- The amount of calories you need to consume each day to achieve your fitness goal, whether that's weight loss goal or greater athletic performance
- The point, known as your aerobic base heart rate, is the highest intensity at which your body still uses fat as it's dominant fuel
- The highest sustainable intensity of exercise, known as your threshold, that your body can sustain and still burn fat efficiently
- The rate at which your body absorbs oxygen, which your body requires to burn fat.
There are two parts to the assessment. The first measures your resting metabolic rate (RMR). Your fitness or health professional will help you position a mask over your nose and mouth, and then you get to relax in a chair for about 10 minutes. Your assessment will be most accurate if you've fasted for a few hours and are well rested. Mornings are a great time for this assessment.
The second part of the assessment measures your metabolic rate during exercise. This portion requires a bit of get up and go. You'll put the mask back on, and for 10 to 15 minutes, you'll walk or jog on a treadmill (or ride a stationary cycle, hop on an elliptical, or whatever you like) at increasing levels of intensity. The payoff is worth it. This is where you'll learn how many calories your body burns while exercising, whether those calories come mainly from fat, carbs, or a combination of both, and at what intensity level you burn calories most efficiently.
What makes a New Leaf metabolic assessment the gold standard? It measures both the oxygen levels and the carbon dioxide levels in your breath, where other techniques measure oxygen only or just airflow. Other metabolic systems merely estimate the carbon dioxide levels in the breath. And with an estimate, you leave a large part of your training program to chance.
With an accurate measure of both oxygen and carbon dioxide, you get a clear picture of your body's complete fuel composition. That is, you know exactly when you're burning the energy-dense fat fuel as opposed to when you're burning the less-efficient carbohydrate fuel. You know the precise heart rate you need to work up to, and how long you should exercise at that intensity. You know you're burning fat, not just time. No guesswork required.
That's the benefit to having a personalized metabolic assessment: You get a training program that is based specifically on the data that is YOU. Your resting metabolic rate. Your required calories. Your calories burned. Your fuel composition. Your base heart rate. Your threshold heart rate. Your fat-burning efficiency. That's what makes the New Leaf metabolic assessment your sure path to success.
Your results determine how long you need to exercise and the best level of intensity. Your results reveal your fitness level right now, and they suggest what level of fitness you may achieve in the future. With your personalized metabolic assessment results in hand, your New Leaf accredited trainer will map out an exercise plan that makes the most of your time and your effort.
Your resting metabolic rate (RMR) is one of the easiest measurements to come by during a New Leaf assessment. It's also one of the most important. Your RMR is the number that comes from sitting in that comfy chair, breathing, and taking it easy. What it reveals is the number of calories your body requires to stay alive.
When your caloric balance drops below your RMR, your body goes into starvation mode, slowly burning calorie-hungry muscle mass while clinging to calorie-dense fat tissue. You may lose some weight at first, but in the not-too-long run, you'll have trained your body to burn calories very, very slowly. Achieving your healthy weight will get tougher and tougher to do.
The key to losing weight safely, effectively, and quickly is to eat enough nutrient-rich foods to stay above your RMR, but below your total daily caloric needs.
Your RMR also identifies what fuel your body's engine is tuned to burn. For instance, if your body burns a lot of sugar while you're at ease, that's certainly the fuel your body will turn to when it's doing the harder work of working out. By putting your New Leaf metabolic assessment results to work, you can train your body to burn more fat, more often-both at work and at rest.
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