Why you need to monitor your body composition

A scale is the most common tool people use to asses the effects of their diet and exercise efforts. It’s cheap, quick and reliable, but if you’re relying on body weight alone, then your missing some valuable insights.

Recent advances in Body Composition Analysis Technology (specifically multi-frequency, multi-compartment impedance techniques) have made it possible to get a highly accurate snap-shot of your body composition, allowing you to measure your fat mass, muscle mass and hydration levels. Having this data is key to understanding the efficacy of your diet and exercise program. Let’s look at a few examples of how body composition data can help you:

Trying to lose weight?

You watch the weight on the scale drop and you congratulate yourself on reaching your goal weight. But what did you lose? If you lost fat, then job well done! But was it only fat? Did you loose muscle mass? How about water weight? If you’re losing weight too fast, you could be shedding precious muscle mass and slowing your metabolism.

An impedance based Body Composition Analysis will show you changes in fat and skeletal muscle mass and let you see your body water levels (so you can see if it’s ‘water weight’ you lost).

You’re happy with your current weight.

You have a healthy BMI for your age/gender and are generally happy with your shape. Without trying to sound alarmist, you may not be at your optimal state. If you have low skeletal muscle mass, you could be at risk for poor health in the future. As people age, we naturally lose muscle mass. If you don’t have a sufficient buffer against this natural loss, age related muscle wasting (sarcopenia) could drastically reduce your quality. Additionally, it’s possible to have unhealthy levels of body fat – putting you at risk of cardiovascular disease – while still registering a ‘healthy’ BMI. For anyone concerned with optimal health, it’s important to understand your body composition.

You’re eating and training to gain muscle.

Many athletes and physique competitors seek to add muscle mass in the ‘off-season’. The best nutritional strategy is to eat lots to ensure in a state of caloric surplus. This part is simple enough, you eat lots and watch the numbers go up. Are you successful? What if the 10 pounds you’ve gained are 1 pound of muscle and 9 pounds of fat? By monitoring your body composition, you can evaluate the rate of muscle and fat gain and adjust your diet and exercise to achieve a healthy balance.

Stop relying on your scale and get your Body Composition assessed today.

At Body Insight, we use the latest medical grade Body Composition Analysis technology to provide a quick, non-invasive, radiation-free breakdown of your Fat Mass, Muscle Mass and Body Water.