I had the chance to get a free body composition test at work and the results provided an eye-opening opportunity to see exactly how much fat, water and lean tissue I have — plus an indicator of metabolic rate.
Several years ago, I contacted the local medical university wellness center about getting a body composition test done, but there was a fee of about $50 and the hours testing was done weren’t suited for someone who works 40 hours a week.
When the test was offered at no cost in my workplace, I jumped at it!
The medical people who did the testing provided a list of suggested steps to take before the testing for optimum results, such as not eating or drinking for 8 hours, standing a certain amount of time beforehand, avoiding caffeine for three hours before, and several other things. The no-eating-or-drinking wasn’t something I could do on a work day, so it may’ve thrown the results off a little. (I like to think the percentage of my body that’s fat would’ve been much, much lower!!)
The equipment used looked like a scale in a doctor’s office with “arms” that had a metal sensor at the end to place both thumbs.
Before stepping on the machine, everyone had to remove shoes and socks so bare feet touched metal sensors under each foot, too. (And I was glad to see the nurse cleaned them with wet wipes after each person finished!)
Multiple electrical voltages are sent through the body which measures the different resistance of the make up of the body (you don’t feel a thing and it doesn’t hurt!).
It only took a few seconds to touch the sensors and do the test, and soon after stepping off the scale, the machine produced a fairly detailed paper report, taking into consideration height and age.
Am not going to reveal my weight, for sure, OR percentage of body fat (let’s just say both are above where they should be!) but here are my other results:
- Basic Metabolic Rate (minimum number of calories for a totally sedentary person to sustain life) = 1403 calories/day. Multiply that by a factor of 1.3751 if you exercise and are active (which I am) — and that comes out to 1,929 calories/day (unfortunately).
- Lean Analysis (muscles) in arms = 108.4% in left arm and 111.7% in right arm (I’m right-handed)
- Lean Analysis (muscles) in legs = 97.0% in left leg and 97.3% in right leg
Have always had extremely muscular legs and was amazed that both came in at less than 100%, but was equally surprised my arms exceeded 100%. Guess the 15 years of lifting weights in Body Pump class an hour a week helped some!
If you get a chance to take the test, do it. You can repeat the test and chart changes as you lose weight or exercise more, so it’s a great way to track specific results.
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Hi, Diane,
That’s cool. I never heard of the lean analysis before. Glad you got good results. Did it make recommendations for types of workouts you should continue?
Interesting machine. Did they mention the margins of error associated with those results?
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They gave a list of things to do beforehand for best results, but I couldn’t do many of them since we were at work so I’m sure my results were off some.