Body Composition

Body composition

Body Composition and Healthy Weight Loss

You can sign up for any commercial weight loss program and you will probably lose weight, however the weight lost was not just fat but probably muscle also. This is because these programs do not evaluate and monitor body composition such as body fat in pounds and percent, muscle mass in pounds and percent, water distribution of intracellular and extracellular compartments and your basal metabolic rate. When muscle is lost along with fat, the body will gain fat back faster.


Evaluate your body composition

In our FirstLine Therapy program we evaluate body composition through medically researched bioimpedance analysis technology. This is a non-invasive test that passes a mild current (about as weak as an old household battery) from your right foot to your right hand. The current passes through the fat, muscle, bone and water compartments of the body. A computerized analysis gives the specific information about your body composition. We can tell down to the 10th of a point if you are gaining or losing fat or gaining or loosing muscle. Adequate muscle mass is an important biomarker of aging.

We perform this test at each visit and you get a print out of the results. The Lifestyle educator will adjust your calorie level based on your results and discuss other lifestyle factors.

Healthy weight loss involves increasing and maintaining your muscle mass as fat mass is reduced. Muscle loss in the average person who gets little exercise and eats a standard American diet begins in the 40′s. After age 50 the average person looses a half pound of muscle per year and gains one pound of fat. So by age 70 that person has lost 10 pounds of muscle and gained 20 pounds of fat. Some of their muscle has actually turned into fat. To reverse or avoid this process requires adequate protein in the diet and resistance exercise. It also involves shifting the body out of a pro-inflammatory state to a non-inflammatory state through dietary and lifestyle changes.

Several medical organizations recommend a goal of a one pound per week of weight loss for women and 1.5-2 pounds per week for men. Any faster than this will reduce muscle mass. This is not as fast as the supermarket checkout tabloids advertise but is much healthier. One pound per week is 52 pounds per year, a reasonable and worthy goal. Contact us to see what your optimum body composition should be.