How many times have you jumped on traditional bathroom scales and suddenly felt deflated by the number looking back at you?
Daily natural fluctuations and slow movement on the scales can have a huge impact on your mood and self-belief to achieve your goals. And while there are many non-numerical ways to measure your progress (like sleep quality or the way your clothes fit), you may be looking for something more objective to inform your journey.
InBody Body Composition Analysers are a highly sophisticated piece of technology that uses Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) to accurately determine body composition. The data collected from a scan can be powerful evidence to help us better understand how changes in diet, lifestyle and training regime influence someone’s progress towards their goals.
In this article we want to unpack how we use Inbody data and explain why everyone who is serious about their body composition goals should get to know this data.
Repeat after me… ‘Feeling good SHOULD NOT be dictated by how much your weight’.
You deserve to feel good everyday!
Unfortunately, standard bathroom scales only provide your scale weight. The human body is much more than that. We are made of muscle, water, minerals and fat, constantly changing throughout the day.
For this reason, we use Inbody data to collect objective data that accurately measures your muscle mass and body fat. During our 8 week challenges this means that every member can walk away with a clear goal that is measurable and realistic.
There is nothing more demotivating than feeling like your hard work has been for nothing. For a myriad of reasons, it is possible to be losing body fat and not seeing this reflected on typical scales. We recommend booking in periodical Inbody scans to track your progress over time.
When counselling our members through their goals, it is important to know what is realistic and the timeline required.
Understanding your basal metabolic rate helps you to set accurate weight loss parameters. Many of our members are surprised to learn that they need around 1300-1700 calories just to exist each day. Therefore a crazy, low, 1200 calorie diet will not put them on the best road to long lasting success. While an aggressive caloric deficit may lead to some short term weight loss initially, the progress will ultimately be short lived as the metabolism slows down, leading you to always feel hungry, depleted and tired.
With the right nutrition and training plan, realistic weight loss or fat loss parameters are dependent on how much weight someone has to lose.
For example: A woman weighing 70 kilograms at 28% body fat can expect weight loss of 0.5kg per week. Therefore if your goal is to lose 6kg of total body weight, it may take you over 12+ weeks to achieve.
There are several factors that will affect someone’s natural ability to build muscle, including training age (number of years you have been lifting weights for), hormone profile, genetics, muscle memory and nutrition. A female’s body frame, lifting regime, love of squats can all play a big role in their ability to grow muscles.
Using the Macdonald Model estimates that women can expect to build:
It is important to understand that for a woman with muscle to gain and little body fat to loose, they need to be a calorie surplus, ensure consistency in the gym and that this will lead to an increase in overall body mass.
Another amazing feature of an Inbody scan is its ability to analyse muscle balance. Without realising it, many of us are walking around with muscle imbalance that are potential causes of injury;
Every joint in the body is surrounded by muscles that produce and control movement. If muscles on one side of a joint become too tight from overuse, it could cause the muscles on the other side to become too weak from lack of use.
We can use the data from the scan to make specific suggestions and changes to training volume and exercise selection to help restore movement. alignment and strength.
For anyone planning on embarking on a weight loss or body composition overhaul, it is important to first understand what you are truly made of first. Working with a coach or fitness professional can help take the guesswork of your journey and ensure that you are not disillusioned by how long it may take to get noticeable results. But ultimately, you need to become your own lab rat. Every action you take (with training, lifestyle and nutrition) will have an effect on your body. An Inbody scan may help you connect ‘the dots’ so that you can make better choices.
Jumping into one of our 8 week challenges is a great way to receive specific coaching on body composition. Be sure to check out our Challenge calendar for the year.
Ange Drake is an personal trainer, women’s empowerment coach and fitness blogger in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. She is the director of one of the few womens’ only strength training gyms in Melbourne, 23W. Ange helps women to learn how to use strength based training, nutritional strategies and a positive mindset to transform their bodies, relationship with food and mind.
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