Fitness-Related Products Promise More Than They Can Deliver

There are fitness products and programs galore that promise to make us slimmer, fitter and healthier. Right now, we're especially susceptible to their lure as we pack on holiday pounds and resolve to lose them in the New Year.

And don't forget: We're all searching for gift ideas.

Some products and programs aren't worthwhile to anyone. Others are useful for some people but not others. Figuring out what's what can be confusing.

Take for instance VO2Max testing, which measures people's fitness levels by determining how efficiently they use oxygen while exercising. Medical experts use VO2Max tests in research and as a tool to diagnose and treat cardiac patients. Elite and endurance athletes use it to figure out how to improve performance.

The test, which resembles a cardiac stress test and is done on either a treadmill or stationary bicycle, requires the person to breathe into a machine via a tube. The machine measures the volume and ratio of oxygen to carbon dioxide output as intensity of exercise increases. Data can determine at what heart-rate zone a person is burning more calories from fat than carbohydrates.

CUSTOMIZED PROGRAMS

Some local fitness centers offer scaled-back versions of the tests to clients. Lifetime Fitness in Ellisville tests clients as part of a Metabolic Profile that costs $150.

Janice Freeman, 60, of Clarkson Valley, had the VO2Max testing in June. She says results allowed Lifetime Fitness trainers to tailor a nutrition and exercise program that had her eating 1,800 calories and working out an hour a day, six days a week. Since then, she's dropped 30 pounds and her VO2Max has jumped from 24 to 34, which means she's more fit. In fact, she says, she now runs rather than walks 5K races.

Her trainers at Lifetime Fitness maintain that clients who know their VO2Max won't waste their time while working out at the facility.

"When you're working out at a high intensity and ventilating only carbon dioxide, we know you're no longer burning fat, but rather carbohydrates," says Jason Miller, personal trainer at Lifetime Fitness.

He adds that consistently working out at a high intensity can train the body to burn only carbohydrates, and that once it goes through all its carbohydrates, it starts breaking down muscle rather than tapping into fat reserves.

"More than 75 percent of people who get this test are working out way too hard," he says.

Most health experts, however, equate using a VO2Max test to using an expensive thermoelectric wine cooler to chill $4 bottles of table wine.

A FREE FORMULA

Mary Uhrich, an exercise physiologist and research manager at Washington University, shakes her head in bewilderment when she hears this. She says that to lose weight, people really only need to know how many calories they're eating compared to how many they're burning.

Freeman's nutrition program combined with regularly exercising for the first time in years is responsible for her weight loss and improved fitness, so kudos to Lifetime Fitness for helping her with that. But it had little to do with knowing her VO2Max.

Uhrich concedes that the body burns a greater percentage of fat calories at a lower intensity of exercise, but notes that the body still burns some fat even at high intensities. But it's been scientifically proved that excess calories ingested, regardless if they're from carbohydrates or protein, will turn to fat if not used.

In other words, burn 3,500 calories, and you'll lose a pound of fat. Also, Uhrich says, fitter people burn more calories because their bodies are more efficient. A person who runs 7 miles burns 700 calories compared to a person who walks 3 miles in the same time but burns 300 calories.

And because runners are generally fitter than walkers, they don't feel like they're working at a higher intensity, Uhrich says, adding that the only way to become fitter is to push yourself.

"One of the principles of fitness is that you must overload the system," Uhrich says. "You must either go longer or go harder." But you don't want to do that in every workout. You should vary your intensities.

She agrees with Lifetime Fitness trainers that unfit people should begin with low-intensity workouts to build a base. Otherwise, they'll burn out quickly. But Uhrich recommends people simply exercise part of the time at an intensity that allows them to barely sustain a conversation.

The "talk test" is safe and appropriate for improving endurance, Uhrich says.

But as for determining your fitness level, "you have to be careful who you talk to," Uhrich says. "You need to read things and talk to a range of people. Would people handle their finances like this? No."