Body Composition Analysis

Body Composition Analysis can tell you your amount of body fat and the amount of lean body mass you have, and help you find the appropriate balance between the two which will be your ideal healthy weight. The term body composition is mentioned by Personal Trainers, Strength and Conditioning Coaches and Dieticians on a regular basis but what does body composition mean?
There are a number of differing charts and opinions that circulate that give an idea of the range you should weigh primarily based in height and gender and at times frame size. But at best they can only provide an estimated range as there are other important factors like your age, the type of work you do, any genetic dispositions, hormonal imbalances that may require correcting, your body composition and your Somatype (Body Type).
All they are going to give you is an approximated generic classification that your range is underweight, at a proper weight, or overweight based on the limited parameters tested. However, a Body Composition Scan can provide you with an extremely accurate measure of how much lean body mass you have, and how much fat you have.

Body Composition
Your total body weight or body composition is made up of two parts. One is simply you’re amount of Body Fat while the other is your Lean Body Mass. Your body fat can be further divided into two types Essential Fat and Stored Fat.

Essential Body Fat -v- Stored Fat
Essential fat is made up of a very small amount of fat that is stored in organs – the heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys and intestines – as well in muscle tissue, in tissues throughout the central nervous system and in the bone marrow. It is termed essential fat because the body requires this fat in order to maintain normal bodily processes such as temperature regulation, shock absorption and energy production. For anatomical gender reasons women have more essential body fat than men due to their body’s need to store energy in the form of fat for hormone related functions and other aspects e.g childbearing.
Storage fat, on the other hand, is the fat that serves to cushion the internal organs (called visceral fat, or abdominal fat) and the fat that lies just beneath the skin surface (subcutaneous fat) that serves to cushion the skeleton and conserve body heat. Excess accumulation of visceral fat is associated with various health concerns, which is one reason why it’s important to keep body fat within a healthy range.

Lean Body Mass
This is simply everything that’s not fat. This component includes your bones, organs, muscles, ligaments, tendons and fluids.
Lean muscle mass and fat mass are made up of two entirely different types of cells and tissues. This is why it’s impossible for muscle to turn into fat as well as the opposite being fat turned into muscle. It’s genetically and physiologically impossible. If you stop exercising your muscle mass reduces as the muscle cells without resistance training become smaller which can make the fat on the surface more apparent.

The Benefit of Body Composition Analysis
It provides accurate information to definitively distinguish between various categories e.g. Thin and Lean or Overweight and Over Fat. It does this very accurately from a neutral scientific and non emotional viewpoint. For a long time we have been misguided by height and weight tables which are inaccurate and too generic.
A person who weighs less than the table suggests would be classified thin but as Body Composition. But, since body composition doesn’t use the height and weight table the person could be carrying excess body fat in which case they could in reality be classified as over fat. Similarly someone who weighs more than the table allows for would be classified as overweight. If Body Composition was utilized the person could have a low body fat percentage which would accurately classify them as lean e.g. An athlete who has a high muscle percentage.
It is now clear whi Body Composition Analysis is a vitally important tool in relation to health, wellbeing and vitality. It is excess body fat and not simply excess weight that has an impact on an individual’s overall health and well-being. General healthy body fat levels are around 15% for men and 22% for women, but these values do vary on a few aspects e.g. Your age, Genetic Predisposition.

Achieving Your Ideal Weight and Shape
A macro nutrient diet and exercise program that is individualized to you is the most efficient and effective way to achieve and maintain a healthy body weight and shape. A tailored exercise program will assist you to build and maintain muscle mass thereby increasing the body’s lean mass.
Weight management program’s can assist in reduction of overall body fat but they can’t target fat loss i.e. reduce fat from a specific spot only. If you do a lot of exercise that targets a specific body part e.g. Abdominals you will tone the muscles underneath making you look slimmer. But when we lose body fat we tend to lose it more or less uniformly over our total body.
So our body shape remains approximately the same whether we lose excess fat to increase our lean mass or gain more muscle which again increases our lean mass percentage. E.g. If you start out heavy and curvy and then lose weight, you’ll probably keep your curves. If you’re built without much of a waistline, you can’t really create one. When you lose body fat, your basic shape will be more or less the same only smaller.

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