SS 200 – How To Measure And Track Your Body Comp

Episode 200 Show Notes

Grant and Heavey take an in-depth look at the various methods to measuring body composition. They cover DEXA scan, dunk tanks, caliper measurement, scale weight, and more! Which do you think is the best approach to measuring your body fat? Read on to find out!

 

[00:47] Eating Junk Increases Risks of Numerous Cancers

 

Grant mentions an article on Eating Junk Food Tied to Higher Risks of Numerous Cancers. In fact, he shared this first with his fiance who has the worst eating habits in regards to everyone he knows. We all know that even hardcore Crossfitters or health conscious people still give in to these junk food temptations.

 

This can be attributed to a lot of reasons including dealing with stress, used as a reward, and is likely developed because of how we’re raised. Heavey agrees with this. He finds that as a young adult, he still enjoys Pizza Hut, which used to be a treat given to him when he was a kid. And, so he thinks this has carried on.

 

[03:42] A British Study Based on Nutri-Score Levels

 

Back to the article, they presented a study done in Britain where they observed almost 480,000 adults in 10 European countries. They were trying to see how different foods being consumed led to different disease states. Then, they hoped to come up with a simple way to help guide people into good eating habits. They came up with this Nutri-Score system. This hasn’t been adopted yet but they’re trying to get all of the EU to adopt it and help people make smarter decisions.

 

The people that eat more junk food had 81.5 cases per 10,000 person years, while those people who ate healthier scored 69 cases per 10,000 person years. The cancers tied to it were colorectal, respiratory, lips, tongue, mouth, nose, throat, esophagus, stomach, lung, breast (for women) – pretty much the whole body can be affected.

 

These analyses are adjusted for other characteristics for physical activity, body mass index, educational levels, smoking status, alcohol use, and family history of cancer. They took all of these things to show the sole effects of food consumed based on what they’ve categorized as junk food, health food, and the Nutri-Score range.

 

Grant pulls some takeaways from this. First, is that even when you account for as many things as we can think of, there is a truly significant difference in your disease state by making the right decisions. Even when you’re doing all these other things, you can modify your risk on an individual level by making smart decisions.

 

[08:34] Fooducate

 

Grant’s fiance shared this with him actually. Fooducate is an app that allows you to scan any product in the grocery store. It grades the product from A-F and tells you how healthy it is or how much of a junk food it is. It will also give you similar food suggestions that are healthier options. It analyzes the entire label and all of the main ingredients. So if you’re someone trying to get healthy, you can try out this app to see if what you’re snacking on is healthy.

 

Heavey’s only concern with this is the criteria this app is using for “healthy.” As you know a lot of companies out there could be labeling their food as the healthy choice when they’re really not.  Nevertheless, this is something interesting and worth looking into.

 

[12:00]  DEXA Scan: The Gold Standard of Measuring Body Comp

 

There are numerous ways to measure body composition. DEXA scan is the gold standard when it comes to measuring body composition. Back on Episode 165, they actually interviewed Adam from DexaFit, a company that offers more affordable DEXA scans.

 

DEXA scan is the most accurate method for measuring body comp. However, it’s really expensive. But with companies like DexaFit, it’s becoming more affordable, probably around $150 which is a lot less than the regular $500. Still, this is a ton of money if this is something you want to use for regular monitoring.

 

[15:16] The More Affordable Option: The Dunk Tank

 

The dunk tank, which is the hydrostatic approach, is more affordable. In fact, some cities have trucks that drive around with the machine in the back. It can be intrusive (as you need to wear swimming trunks) and a bit weird as you’d have to let all the air out of your lungs, but it’s more reasonably priced. Heavey recalls it’s around $40-$50 a test.

 

[16:10] Price is Something to Consider

 

Grant raises a valid point that the test doesn’t really do much with just one reading. You’ve got to do it again and again. Hence, accounting for the price is really important.

 

Heavey agrees on this in that getting one DEXA scan doesn’t necessarily tell you much since the idea is to be able to look at repeated measurements to see how your fitness program is affecting your body composition.

 

They also add that there could be some biases. So if you get a DEXA scan and then do a hydrostatic test the second time around, any change noticed wouldn’t really be a valid measurement. There’s going to be some inherent differences in those tests and that’s going to be part of that difference in measurement.

 

However, you can actually do the DEXA scan or the hydrostatic and then also do caliper measurements. For example, get the DEXA scan and caliper measurements on the same day and get those two matched. From there, you’d know that those caliper measurements corresponded with that body fat percentage. So you can then look at deltas in your caliper measurement and related it back to the DEXA scan.

 

[18:00] Calipers Do Work! (Depending on Who Does It)

 

Heavey explains that even though it might feel weird to have somebody pinching your fat rolls, calipers are actually very accurate and valuable when used by a skilled operator. Don’t use the plastic ones, but the ones that are like metal clamps, which are the high precision versions. That being said, even though you’ve got nice calipers, it won’t help if you’re not able to operate it well. It has to be done by somebody who does it on a regular basis because the way they take measurements needs to be done in a repeatable fashion.

 

Heavey is one of those skilled operators having gone through a continuing education, doing it to 50 different people in a one-month period. So he got skilled at the end of the month. However, it’s been so long now since he has done it so he admits to losing his touch.

 

Also, skilled caliper users have a system for it. If you’re going to interview people about doing caliper measurements on you, ask them what their approach is and if it seems they’re very regimented in it then there’s a good chance they know what they’re doing and they can produce repeatable results.

 

[20:25] Using the Bioelectric Impedance

 

Heavey wouldn’t really advise using the scale you have at home that has those foot paddles or sensors that use bioelectric impedance. So please don’t rely on them! They’re horribly inaccurate, as Heavey would describe them.

 

However, there are the higher end products like those with the handles you hold onto. But still, they’re historically inaccurate. Although more recently, they’ve been making strides on that technology as they’re now using multiple frequencies to do the measurements. The fact they’re using both hand and foot sensors make them a lot better. Still prone to error, but they’re much more reliable.

 

Heavey adds that when you choose to do this, you must take special care to test yourself under very similar conditions each time to get the most out of that measurement.

 

Grant raises the question of measuring hydration. Heavey says that the higher-end InBody machines try to measure total body’s water content. However, he hasn’t seen any data yet in terms of comparing it to the DEXA scan standard.

 

[24:20] Measuring Your Body Comp on Your Own

 

Heavey stresses that all those test mechanisms generally require you to go somewhere and pay somebody to do measurements for you. This is still a big ask for a lot of people. For some, this could be embarrassing or they might struggle with finding a skilled caliper operator or they don’t have the budget to even pay $20 for the bioelectric impedance.

 

So you might want to consider having a system that you can do on your own. Heavey recommends using the scale weight as a starting point. It doesn’t tell you anything about body composition, but it gives you a baseline.

 

[26:16] The Issue with Scale Weight and the Weekends

 

For instance, if you go on a low carb diet and you’re normally on a regular high carb diet, the first week, you could end up losing 5-10 pounds. But that weight loss would be almost entirely from water. This would return as soon as you’re eating higher carbs. Not to mention sleep, stress, salt intake, hormones, and a bunch of other things that can all affect your scale weight.

 

Also, say you have crazy weekends. You might have a nice decrease in your weight on Fridays but then you see it increase on Mondays. So every weekend, there’s a little bit of undoing the progress from the week. The trend is then generally downward. There are a lot of factors that are leading to the level becoming higher such as salt intake, absorbed calories, etc.

 

Hence, when you’re doing scale weight, Heavey recommends doing multiple measurements per week so you can see the trend through the noise.

 

[29:40] Measure Your Waist

 

Heavey recommends a second measurement to pair with which is your waist circumference. In fact, Heavey believes this serves as a strong proxy for abdominal fat. If you see changes in your waist circumference, then you can largely attribute that as a decrease in abdominal fat. Again, this has to be done on a very set regimen.

 

Nevertheless, waist measurements still aren’t perfect since there are non-fat-related changes due to bloating. Especially if you’re switching to a higher fiber diet, for a short period of time, it can lead to increased waist circumference as well as water retention from both food and hormones. All of this can affect your waist circumference so you have to consider these when evaluating the measurement changes over time.

 

[31:18] How to Combat the Variables

 

Again, Heavey emphasizes that one of the ways to combat the variability in both the scale weight and the waist circumference is measurement consistency. For instance, you do the measurement every Friday morning, when you wake up, after your pee and poo, before drinking or eating anything. Just come up with that same thing you can stick with.

 

Additionally, ladies need to be aware of where they are in their cycle as this could lead to water retention which can obviously affect the measurement. Heavey recommends doing scale weight 2-3 times a week. While waist circumference is something you can do less frequently, like once a month. You can time it at the same time of the month.

 

[33:15] U.S. Navy Body Comp Measurement Tool

 

Heavey also recommends this body composition assessment tool used by the U.S. Navy. For men, it requires measurements in body weight, height, abdomen circumference, and neck circumference. For women, it’s height, weight, waist circumference, hip circumference, and neck measurement.

 

Once you’ve taken these measurements, use this U.S. Navy body composition analysis tool and it would give a body fat percentage estimate. Heavey says this is spot on with the DEXA scan testing he has done in active population.

Links:

Eating Junk Food Tied to Higher Risks of Numerous Cancers

Fooducate

SS 165: Measuring Body Fat w/ Adam from DexaFit

U.S. Navy Body Comp Measurement Tool

U.S. Navy Body Comp Assessment