A normal weight doesn’t necessarily mean you’re healthy. People who are “skinny fat” are outwardly slim but carry excess belly fat that puts them at risk of conditions like heart disease and type 2 diabetes. To improve your body comp, you should focus on eating a protein-rich diet at maintenance calories while incorporating cardio and resistance exercises and regular body composition scans.

Genetics play a huge role in determining your weight and body composition. Your susceptibility to obesity and how fat is distributed on your body are also genetically determined. Fortunately, a healthy lifestyle and regular health monitoring can help to overcome the effects of “bad genes” and help you generate a healthy body composition.

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) implemented whole body DXA scans of survey participants age 8 years and older to provide nationally representative data on body composition.

Results: Females had higher percentage body fat and fat mass than males. After age 11 years, males had higher lean tissue and fat-free mass than females. Percentage body fat was lowest at ages 16–19 years among males and at ages 8–15 years among females.

We now know that having the right microbes is essential to health. But how exactly do we help the “right” strains flourish? What environments should we expose ourselves to? And, what lifestyle factors do we incorporate to integrate healthy strains of bacteria into our gut and get rid of bad ones? In the next couple of posts, we will discuss how exactly we can do that. How we can flourish optimal strains and promote diversity of microbes to create this “lush” bacterial ecosystem.

With so much attention on COVID-19, ordinary elements of many people’s wellness routines have fallen by the wayside. But no amount of hand washing can replace quality nutrition and staying active. In conjunction with healthy lifestyle choices, regular lab testing offers an array of benefits, from catching unwanted muscle loss to revealing valuable insights into your nutritional needs.

At 6-foot-3 and 375 pounds with a BMI of 46.9, Michael Onwenu is “severely” obese. That’s according to official parameters set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), anyway, which relies on the Body Mass Index (BMI) to screen for overweight or obesity. But in addition to being “severely obese,” Onwenu is a professional athlete. And not just any athlete—he’s the strong, fast, and fit offensive lineman for the New England Patriots who has been touted as “one of the best rookies in the NFL.” By using DEXA scan results to inform training programs and provide positive reinforcement, parents and coaches can help young athletes avoid injury, prevent disease, and improve their overall health and performance.

Compared to traditional measures like scale weight and BMI, body composition—or the total amount of fat, muscle, bone, water and other tissues in your body—is a much more valuable indicator of progress. This post will discuss the benefits of monitoring your body composition, suggest how often to check yours, and share science-backed strategies for improving your ratio of lean mass to body fat.

In part one of “The Microbiome and Health,” we discovered how we initially acquire our microbiome, or the collection of microorganisms that inhabit our digestive system. We learned that our initial exposure happens at birth, and we then build on this bacterial ecosystem with increased exposure to different foods, environments, people, and lifestyle factors. We also learned that our microbiome is linked to almost every part of our health. So, what is it about these little critters that’s so important? Has our microbiome changed over evolution? And, which parts of health and disease do our microbes influence exactly (and why is that important)?

Even as you lounge by the pool or relax on the couch watching Netflix, your body is performing basic, life-sustaining functions like breathing, cell growth and repair, and blood circulation. The amount of energy—or the number of calories—your body expends to sustain these functions is your resting metabolic rate (RMR).

Biomarker testing can unlock hyper-personalized recommendations based on the optimization of health, performance, recovery, longevity, and wellbeing. Monitoring your biomarkers at routine intervals—and following a custom plan to improve them—is a powerful way to transform your body over time while avoiding chronic illness and injury. Learn more about how biomarker analysis works and how often you should be testing yours.

Your sex plays a huge role in your body composition, which is why it’s especially important for women to seek out information that’s aimed specifically at them. The business of body composition is a very male-dominated one, so it can be hard to find a clear explanation of how body comp differs in women. And it does differ—a lot! In fact, body composition in women changes from day to day, depending on several factors, such as age, activity level, hormones, and hydration status.

Did you know that you have ten times the amount of bacterial cells than your own human cells in your body?

This collection of microorganisms, including bacteria, fungi, archaea, and protists, whose cells account for 10-fold more than our own cells, are what defines our microbiome.

What if I tell you that you may have a completely different glucose response to a cookie than your friend has, and this high or low response is dependent on the type of microbes YOU have. Would you begin to eat differently?

The bacteria living in our bodies are critical to our wellbeing - interacting with virtually all human cells. They influence many factors, such as the development of our immune system and how much energy we extract from the foods we eat. They make vitamins and minerals for us, they determine how high (or low) our blood glucose is after a meal, and they even decide whether we are happy or sad (10). There is much much more to their contribution, which we will discuss below and in future posts.

DEXA scan is notoriously hard to find, partly because it has been originally used for diagnosing bone density. As a result, it is often vastly unused by the general population.

The easiest way to locate and book a DEXA scan, especially for body composition, is through this DEXA scan locator.

My journey into nutrition began quite early. I was born and raised in a small coastal town in Poland called Gdansk, and I initially became fascinated with food, and all that encompasses growing, cooking, and eating, from my grandparents. My parents immigrated to the US when my sister and I were young (my dad came here when I was a year and a half, and mom came when I was 6 years old) and so we spent quite a bit of time with our grandparents before we joined our parents in the US in 1989. I was 7 and my sister was 6 at the time.

Learning from my grandparents was the foundation of my curiosity about food and health.

A DEXA scan is a high-precision type of X-ray that provides a comprehensive picture of your body composition. This includes body fat percentage, breakdown of fat mass vs fat-free mass, body fat distribution (incl. visceral fat), bone density, comparison with healthy ranges and population data (percentile, Z-score).

If your body fat percentage is higher than normal for your age, you should aim to decrease your fat mass, while maintaining or increasing your fat-free mass. If your bone density is lower than normal for your age, it indicates a risk for bone fractures. DEXA stands for dual energy X-ray absorptiometry.

Body fat percentage chart for Women:

Under 15%: Low Body Fat Risk.

15%-18%: Ultra Lean.

18%-22%: Lean.

22%-30%: Moderately Lean.

30%-40%: Excess Fat.

Above 40%: High Body Fat Risk.

Understanding the physiology of the body and how food is utilized within the body, can give you the tools to improve your metabolism properly and sustainably. It isn’t rocket science. Mostly, it’s about going back to the basics of health. It’s about focusing on your sleep, eating regularly, eating more whole foods, eating less packaged foods, reducing stress, and moving your body.

What is the difference between the BOD POD and the DEXA?

The BOD POD test will provide you with your total body fat and fat-free mass measurements. The BOD POD does not provide body fat levels by body part. The DEXA body composition measurement technology provides far more complete and precise information than any other weight and body fat assessment tool. The DEXA Scan provides data on total body fat percentage, total fat mass and fat-free mass, regional body fat results (trunk, arms, legs, pelvis and android/gynoid regions), along with bone density.

Ignore the naysayers, overcome the resistance, and equip yourself with accurate information about the condition of your body. While everyone’s body is different and everyone’s path to weight loss success will be unique to them, counting calories and keeping yourself accountable is a great start. The science of health and fitness has never been so available, effective, and energizing and there is no better time to dive in!

Most people have no idea what body composition really means or how understanding things like how they, personally, store fat and where, can help them make better health and wellness choices.

Think of body composition as a blueprint for your health that you can use to better understand your own way around your body. It’s a breakdown of all of the elements of your body and how they fit together to make you who you are: bones, muscles, fat, organs etc.