Personal trainer, Sierra Carter, recently went to our partner location in Coral Gables, Florida for a DEXA scan. She, like many other fitness professionals, utilizes body composition testing to get a more comprehensive understanding of her fitness rather than relying on the often misleading numbers from a traditional home scale.

“Getting a DEXA scan before starting a new fitness program with goals in mind is a great idea. It will help you keep track of your results in a concrete and measurable way. Knowing your starting body fat percentage and bone density will help you measure your progress as you see how your body changes after getting another scan in 8–10 weeks.

Getting a DEXA scan can also help you understand your risk for certain chronic diseases by giving you a better understanding of how much body fat you have and where you store it as well as your bone density.”

One of the key take-aways that Sierra discusses in her review of her results, is that not only does DEXA offer a body fat percentage, but it also offers a percentile based on your age, gender and ethnicity. That percentile is arguably the most key component of your DEXA scan to monitor. Reason being, DEXA body fat percentages are unique to DEXA and therefore cannot be compared against body fat percentages found elsewhere. They also don’t correlate to how a BMI scale will estimate your body fat percentage and classify you.

What she learned

“One of the main things that DEXA scans are good for is reviewing your body fat percentage. Having a healthy body fat percentage lowers your risk of chronic illness including diabetes, heart disease, and more.

My body fat came out to 20.9%. The results show that I am in the 1st percentile for my age, gender, and weight. That means that my body fat percentage is very good as I am in a low percentile.”

Another thing to keep in mind when it comes to considering your body fat percentage in our DEXA results is that every human needs some amount of fat - essential fat - in order to simply function. Women require somewhere between (if you were an elite athlete) 12% and 15% where men require a bit less, around 8-10%. That means that no one, no matter how elite or fit, will have a body fat percentage reading from a DEXA lower than that.

DEXA also provides a generalized reading for bone density and provides an age matched percentile for comparison.

“The next awesome measurement that the DEXA Scan takes is bone density. As a woman, bone density is extremely important. Having healthy bone mass means little to no risk of osteoporosis or osteopenia later in life. It also prevents muscle wasting and helps keep you moving pain-free later into life.”

Monitoring how you measure up compared to other individuals similar to you is the best way to understand the state of your bone density and monitoring your percentile over time is the best way to look for changes.

Sierra’s advice

“If you’ve already been working out for a while or would consider yourself a fit person, a DEXA scan is still a good idea to help you see all your hard work and show you what you still need to be working on.

So, whether you’re looking into getting your first DEXA scan or getting another one, click here and use Fitnescity to sign up for your scan. They work with executive wellness venues all over the United States and streamline the process of getting scanned to also provide you with explanations of your results. They also store your results in their website providing easy comparisons from scan to scan!”

You can check out Sierra’s full blog post for more of her insights and experience with her recent Fitnescity DEXA scan. Have you had a Fitnescity DEXA scan recently? Let us know. We love hearing your stories.