About FitLab

Amy Walker has always been passionate about helping people achieve their health and fitness-related goals and maintain a healthier way of living. As a former athlete, Athletic Director, and certified Personal Trainer, she bring years of experience, passion, and education to FitLab Metabolic Services.

How it Began (the short version):

After several years in the health club industry, Amy was introduced to technology that revolutionized the way
she trained her clients.   Although this technology has been available to elite athletes (like Lance Armstrong) for over a decade, the medical equipment used for these assessments was only newly available to the mainstream individual. Rather than using a subjective techique based on an educated guess, fitness professionals can now use scientific data to build individualized profiles for each and every client based upon their own body.

Using this information, Amy decided she would like to start a business built around customized programs for each and every client, whether it be for weight loss, sports performance, or something in between. Thus, FitLab Metabolic Services was born.

Amy’s Story (the detailed version):

It’s been several years since I officially started this company called FitLab Metabolic Services but the principle of Metabolic testing turned me into a believer years before that.  You see, I’d always been an athletic, reasonably thin person: playing several sports in high school, continuing to run, lift, and participate in athletics in college, and then carrying my love for fitness over into a career as a Personal Trainer and Athletic Director.  Fast forward several years to the point where I’d taken a desk job for the comfort of a salary and I’d met and gotten to know my now-husband over hundreds of high calorie meals.  I gained 25 pounds of what I now like to refer to now as “happy fat”.   One small overconsumption at a time occurred and since I looked at myself in the mirror every day, I didn’t recognize the transformation that had taken place until DW, my husband, and I took our first set of professional family photos together.  As I was proofing those pictures, I clicked through photo after photo in shock.  Of course I realized that it was definitely me in the pictures, but I was absolutely appalled at the way I looked, especially in the shots-from-behind.  It was this moment that made me say, “No more.” 

My days of mindless consumption and weeks upon months of not exercising were over.  I had found my motivation.   Reverting back to the knowledge that I had gained from years of working out and training others, I assumed that the weight would come off quickly and I would be a thin person again in no time.  I immediately began to moderate my daily calories as well as crank up the running regimen.   That was what had worked before so I had no doubt it would work for me again.  Wrong. 

Months of watching my calories carefully and exercising at an intensity where I would be drained for hours after stepping off the treadmill and I’d lost, what, 5 pounds MAX?  What has happened to me?  Everything that had always worked for me in the past was no longer working.  I used to be able to “eat whatever I wanted” and then as long as I exercised it didn’t matter.  But I’d never tried to lose weight before.  And, suddenly, I was really, really confused.

Around this time I was introduced to the concept of metabolic profiling.  Basically, it’s a scientific form of understanding the “inner-workings” of your own metabolism.   I was skeptical to say the least.  It sounded like another gimmicky way for someone in the weight loss industry to capitalize on and make money off of the overall consumer’s rampant desire to lose weight at any cost.   So I set about doing my research and realized that this form of information had been around for over a decade and had been used by athletes like Lance Armstrong to fine-tune performance but was newly available to the Average Joe.  I’d even studied this concept for training athletes in college at Texas Tech but had never realized the potential it had for the weight loss community as well. 

To put it simply, my body used far less calories in a day than I had realized and conversely expended far more calories during exercise than I had factored.  The result of what these tests explained to me were simple, yet life-altering:  I was over-consuming and over-training resulting in exhaustion, disappointment, and, let’s face it, far too few results for the effort I was putting out.   The data put it into perspective for me and after 12 weeks of following the program religiously, albeit skeptically, it all made sense.   When I had the results of my metabolic profile and implemented the plan based off of my body instead of the subjective formulas I’d learned in college, the weight began to come off.  Slowly and steadily, I became a believer.  And not just a believer – someone who passionately wanted to create a fitness company based on the principles I’d learned!

So what are these principles?  

Well, foundationally, it’s nothing different than what you’ve been taught your whole life:  keep your caloric intake to levels that will support energy but not the storage of body fat.   More simply: Calories in —- Calories out.  One pound is equal to 3500 calories and is approximately the size of a softball.  But if you don’t know how many calories you need per day and/or you don’t know how many calories you truly are expending, how is it possible to get the balance right – even with that knowledge?  Exactly. 

I created FitLab Metabolic Services so that I could answer that exact question for anyone who had the desire to know the inner-workings of their own body to the number.  FitLab was created for the person trying to lose weight and for the athlete trying to fuel their sport but not lose their power, speed, or muscle.  It all comes down fueling correctly for your goal – and if the information is available – why in the world wouldn’t people want to know it? I thought.  It was like being able to give someone a winning lottery ticket, the “golden ticket”.   Let me define for you how this works:

The first assessment we perform  – and maybe the most important  – is to test the body at rest.  We refer to this as your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR).  This tells us two key pieces of information:

1. RMR – gives a specific number that your body will use in a day to support basic biological function like your eyes blinking, heart beating, etc.  This is what your body has to have in order to function optimally.
2. RMR + Lifestyle – the number needed to support biological function (as mentioned above) PLUS the number of calories you burn “carrying” yourself around throughout the activities of your day.  Remember, your body has a “weight” tied to it.  This is the number of calories you burn throughout an entire day.

The second assessment, a Exercise Metabolic Rate (EMR), tells us how many calories the body burns per minute during various forms of exercise.   We are able to do this by using specialized equipment that analyzes how much oxygen (energy) goes into the body, how it is used up, and how much carbon dioxide (waste) comes out.  It’s the same principle as filling up your car with gasoline.  It runs really, really well until it’s out of gas.  At the point it runs out of gas, the engine flounders, the cars kicks and jerks, and eventually dies.  You know what’s going on with the car by watching the gauge on your dash.  In the same sense, by watching your gauge (a heart rate monitor), you will know how to best obtain your goals.

1. Eat less than you burn for weight loss.
2. Burn only the type of fuel that keeps your body efficient and productive – fat, not muscle.
3. Give the body enough calories back post-exercise so that it doesn’t believe it is being starved. This deters muscle loss and signals to the body that it doesn’t have any reason to store fat. 
4. Increase Cardiac (heart) health to live a longer, more productive life.

After years of performing these assessments and seeing it work, I’m more a believer today than ever.  I’ve seen it work for those who wanted to be better athletes but were under-consuming and burning up their lean muscle and, therefore, losing power.  I’ve seen it work for women who have gone through menopause and thought it was just a part of the process of getting older.  I’ve seen it work for people who have been severely overweight their entire life and, though they may have gotten there by over-consuming, they’ve been unable to reverse the trend because the body is built to withstand “famine” which essentially what weight loss signals to the body is happening.  Consistently what I’ve seen are people who finally understand how their body functions and knowledge is – by far – the best form of power. 

Over five years ago, these principles changed my life.  Let me now help you change yours.