Indirect Calorimetry Services

For persons with diabetes, knowing your caloric needs versus your actual daily intake is important to staying healthy. Baptist Health offers an effective means of determining caloric need. Indirect calorimetry is a sophisticated medical technology that determines the amount of energy your body requires based on measurements of the oxygen you breathe and the carbon dioxide you exhale. Your energy requirements are easily converted to the number of calories you need. 

Knowing the precise number of calories your body requires can help you determine what and how much to eat, depending on your desire to lose or gain weight.

What You Need to Know

Indirect calorimetry involves the following steps:

• Establishing an outpatient appointment
• Fasting for 12 hours beforehand.
• Breathing normally into a mask during your appointment. The procedure is quick and painless. No exercise is required and you remain fully clothed. 
• Keeping the mask in place for 10 or fewer minutes

Once the procedure is completed, you will review the results with one of our RD's. He or she will help you customize a dietary plan for meeting your weight goals.