If you want to lose weight and feel more vitality, then this article is important reading. It’s possible that you’ve been making a big mistake! It’s natural to just focus on the numbers on your scale when you’re trying to maintain or lose weight, but this can actually be counter productive.

Why what you weigh isn’t relevant to losing weight

The benefits of Body Composition Analysis

Your body is composed of three main parts:

1. Lean muscle tissue
2. Body fat
3. Body water

Ordinary home scales only measure your weight, which is the total of these three components. When you decide to lose weight, your real goal is to lose body fat and at least maintain or even increase muscle and water. Your total body weight isn’t representative of how you look and or how healthy you are; only your body fat and lean muscle tissue determines this. For example, say you are 170cm tall, weigh 70kgs and have a body fat of 30%. If you were to stand next to someone else who was also 170cm and weighs 70kg but has a body fat of just 20%, they would look significantly slimmer and more toned, and be at less risk of chronic health problems, than you despite your weight being the same!

Body Composition is the key

Even if you are losing weight, this can mean you are losing muscle and water and no fat at all. This is not what you want if you want to look fit and be healthy! This is why it’s essential to consider your body composition.

A body composition analysis measures the following:

• Overall weight
• Lean muscle tissue
• Body fat
• Hydration levels
• Metabolic rate
• Visceral fat
• Metabolic age

Your metabolic rate determines what your body does with the calories from food i.e. whether it burns them or stores them as fat. Typically dieting leads to a slowing down of your metabolism as your body tries to fight the weight loss but if you are eating the right foods, your body composition analysis will actually show an increase in metabolic rate. Your visceral fat score indicates whether your fat storage is the less harmful “subcutaneous” or just under the skin fat, or the more clinically significant deep fat around the organs. Knowing this is important in developing an effective weight loss program. FREE Body Composition Analysis is available in store at Mr Vitamins 394 Victoria Ave. Also as part of a consultation with a Naturopath or Nutritionist, you can have Body Composition testing done to track your health progress.