Cardio, Fat Burn Zone, VO2 Max

[dapper]

A few questions here.

1. Where would one go to have their VO2 Max tested?

2. Would anyone know if medical insurance pays their part for someone to have this tested?

3. I take meds for for my heart. Blood Pressure and maybe something to do with my HR. I take some of my meds in the mornign only and some morning and night. If I go and try to do cardio after I take my meds I cannot get my HR up. I have had the incline on the treadmill up as high as it would go trying to walk at 4 MPH and had a hard time keeping my HR at 120. So I have to do my cardio after I lift so I don't have to work so much against my meds. So with meds does I am thinking I need to work off VO2 Max more than just HR.

4. My goal as always has been to burn fat and nothing else. My diet is on. I have ate 1800, 2000, 2200, 2500, 2700 calories a day all of which I did for at least a month and now down to 1700 calories a day and I have gained 29lbs in the past 11 months. I know it don't make since but it is true. I am also a diabetic and I keep my A1C at 5.8 which is a very good number, from what my lab reports say it is in the non diabetic range. So I now have no idea how many calories to eat each day. If I use sedentary for metabolic rate it says 2416 and if I use light activity it says 2723. I have gained weight for the past 11 months. Now before you say anything, my tape measurements have not gone down. Actually my waist has gone from 42" to 43". Nothing else has changed much at all.

dbflgirl has helped me out for the past 4 months, she don't get it either. I have started taking thyroid meds prescribed by my doctor since my morning body temp was running around 96.5. He started me out on 15mg and it didn't change, moved me to 30mg and it is now around 97.2, so Friday he upped it to 60mg so Saturday morning was my first day on 60mg, I will see whre my temp is in the morning but I can't sleep so it will probably be low.

By the way I have done cardio and gained weight, not done cardio and gained weight. Lately I just quit doing cardio since I gain weight when I do it and I hate it anyway so I just stopped it. I want to start it up again and see if this higher dosage of the thyroid meds might help so this info on HR would help. I have used 220-43 (age)=177x70%=123 even though I was keeping mine around 130 bpm. I thought fat burn zone was 50-60% for optimal fat burning. I know the treadmills at myh gym say fat burn was 116 bpm for me.

I do lift 5 days a week as well. I am lifting more weight all the time. SO I am getting stronger.

Thanks in advance for any replies.