Body Composition Analysis (BCA) uses bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) technology to measure your body composition and accurately differentiate between fat mass and lean muscle mass. This is important because the human body is composed of fat, muscle, bones, organs and fluid, all of which contribute to your weight.
Research shows that body composition (the levels of muscle and fat mass, as well as where our fat is stored) is more indicative of health status and chronic disease risk than just weight alone.
Higher levels of muscle mass has a significant impact on our health, and helps to support our bone health, balance and mobility, immune function, and metabolic rate. It is also important to maintain muscle as we naturally lose muscle as we age, known as sarcopenia.
During weight loss, and particularly after WLS, or even embarking on an exercise program, knowing your body composition is essential. It is important to know the type of weight you are losing, fat mass or lean muscle mass, since you do not want to lose our most physiologically important and most metabolically active body tissue (yes we are talking about our muscle!). As we know, muscle mass is significantly heavier than fat mass and, in some circumstances, whilst you may not seem like you are losing ‘weight’, your muscle to fat mass ratio may be changing.
A body composition analysis will give you a report outlining your:
- Body mass including; total fat mass, body fat percentage, total muscle mass and bone mass
- Aged matched comparison and metabolic age
- Ratio of fat/muscle composition for arms, legs, and abdomen
- Visceral fat measurement
- Basal metabolic rate
A BCA will provide you with detailed measurements of fat, muscle and other physiological measurements, as shown in the image above. Our Dietitians understand how to accurately interpret your body composition results and understand parameters for body fat and muscle levels, segmental analysis, leg muscle score, visceral fat, and basal metabolic rate.
After Weight Loss Surgery
After surgery you may experience rapid weight loss. There is a risk is that a significant proportion of that weight loss may be lean muscle mass. So, it is important to monitor your body composition to track the type of weight you are losing throughout your weight loss journey. By using a combination of diet and supplements we can help build/maintain your lean muscle mass, whilst focusing on loss of fat mass. In this way we can help to optimise your metabolic health and improve your long term weight loss and health outcomes.
Medical Nutrition Therapy
Often diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure is related to where the fat is deposited in your body. Abdominal obesity refers to the visceral fat often referred to 'toxic fat' around your organs. We can measure your visceral fat as part of your BCA and tailor your diet to help reduce visceral fat levels and improve metabolic health outcomes.
As we go through different life stages our body composition, nutritional requirements and health status change. Some of the reasons may be Hormonal, Injury/Illness, Food Choices, Lifestyle, or Ability to Exercise; which can all impact fat deposition and ability to build or maintain lean muscle mass. This is common for both men and women as we age and particularly so during menopause (see our Podcast on 'Why losing weight becomes harder as we age') . Statistically, we can lose 10% of our lean muscle mass every decade from the age of 30. This can be exacerbated due to illness or hospital admissions; especially in the elderly, who have a higher risk of sarcopenia.
This doesn't have to be case; by measuring and monitoring our Body Composition and optimising our nutrition, these changes and be minimised and even improved.
Sports Performance
You may have undertaken a gym program, or have been working out, and feel that you have seen limited results. By measuring your body composition, our Dietitians can help you achieve your goals. In conjunction with an individualised nutrition plan, tailored to your specific requirements by our Dietitians, recommendations that focus on protein timing and intake and nutrition for exercise recovery can be expertly made. This can be done in combination with your training program to enhance your body composition for weight management, body building and/or to optimise sports performance.
Consultations & Packages
We offer a number of packages that combine nutrition consultations with body composition scans to help you excel in your health, fitness and performance. Click here for our full price list.
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