Promoting good health and longevity is the goal of Relish Health, and research has shown that body composition is one of the best indicators to measure how well you are doing. Your weight is made up of muscle, fat, and water. Excess fat in relation to lean body mass, even if you are an “ideal weight,” can greatly increase your risks to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and more. Instead of tracking how heavy you are, Relish Health uses body composition analysis to detect health risks and allow for earlier intervention and prevention of illness. Understanding your body composition allows your health plan to be tailored to your needs, often focusing on losing body fat and gaining muscle while retaining the proper amount of body water in specific areas of your body. Body composition analysis is the key to tracking and maintaining effective muscle mass and strategic weight loss.
Relish Health uses an InBody570 bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) machine to complete body composition analysis in the office. BIA is a non-invasive, safe measurement of fluid and body mass that can be a critical assessment tool for your current state of health. By standing and holding onto electrodes, the machine determines the resistance to the flow of the current through the body. In about 45 seconds, the InBody machine provides very accurate measurements of the following values.
Lean Body Mass (fat-free mass) is the total weight of all your organs, your skin, your bones, your body water and your muscles. (It isn’t the same as muscle.) It is the total weight of your body minus all the weight due to your fat mass. Optimum levels are associated with healthy aging, vitality, and better resilience against stressors.
Skeletal Muscle Mass (SMM) is the total weight of your muscles. SMM is muscle that can be grown and developed through exercise. Unlike Lean Body Mass, which includes everything except body fat, you can confidently interpret an increase in SMM as muscle gain.
Dry Lean Mass is the weight of the protein and mineral content in your body. Dry lean mass is lean body mass minus the body water. When you build muscle, you are actually building new physical protein stores that will be reflected in an increase in dry lean mass. Increased dry lean mass is a strong indicator that you actually grew muscle.
Body Water can be found inside not only your blood, but in your muscles, fat, organs, and inside every cell in your body. A healthy body water distribution has been estimated at a 3:2 ratio of intracellular water to extracellular water.
Intracellular Water (ICW) is the water located inside your cells. It makes up 2/3 of the water inside your body. Increased ICW indicate improved nutrition status and improved overall health, often correlating to increased lean body mass, energy use, strength, and immune health.
Extracellular Water (ECW) is water located outside your cells in your blood. This makes up about 1/3 of your body’s water. Increased ECW indicates health risks like toxicity, inflammation, acidity, infection, unhealthy fat mass, and/or mineral imbalance.
Body Fat Mass is a measure of how much body fat, both surface level (subcutaneous/under the skin) and internal (visceral/around the belly organs), makes up your weight. Excess levels of visceral fat are associated with all major degenerative diseases. Additionally, fat stores toxins, converts healthy hormones to toxic hormones and triggers insulin resistance.
Percent Body fat (PBF) is a division of your body fat mass by your total weight and a much better indicator of your risk of obesity than body mass index (BMI). BMI is determined by dividing your weight by your height squared. BMI is just a single value that does not differentiate between fat or muscle mass. If you use BMI to track your fitness progress, you will never know if the changes were in fat or muscle. Alternatively, PBF puts your weight into context by showing how much of it is fat mass. Tracking changes in your body fat percentage lets you focus on actual fat loss, not just weight loss, which can also come from losing muscle mass.
For PBF, the ideal ranges differ for men and women, as women tend to carry more body fat than men due to their reproductive system and genetics. For men, the healthy range is between 10-20%. For women, the healthy range is between 18-28%.
Periodic BIA measurements allows Relish Health to track your progress as you improve your health. Improving your BIA measurement, or maintaining a healthy BIA measurement, can help keep your body functioning properly for healthy aging. Your BIA results can help guide Relish Health in creating a personalized dietary and exercise plan to help you maintain optimal health and wellbeing for a lifetime.