For the next six weeks my Crossfit gym, Crossfit BPM, is participating in a strength and nutrition challenge. As part of the challenge, each participant got a body scan through the company My Body Stats and we will also get another scan at the end of the competition. The body scan revealed our weight, lean body mass, body fat percentage as well as a breakdown of how much muscle and fat is in different parts of our body.
The scan was super easy. They brought their machine to the gym as well as a height measurement device. They first measured my height and input that into the machine as well as my age and gender. I then had to stand on the scale with my feet lined up on these sensors and I then had to hold these little sensors in each hand with my arms away from my body. It didn’t feel uncomfortable but as the scan was doing its work I could feel my arms starting to shake because I have no muscles hehehe (or so I thought).
The results from the test were really interesting, and I have mixed feelings about different parts of it:
*Note: I blacked out my personal information, but I don’t care if people see my fat results*
So the main numbers that the scan people told us to look at were our Lean Body Mass, Body Fat Mass, and Percent Body Fat. The two categories I wanted to kind of comment on are muscle mass and body fat.
Muscle Mass
The lady said I have quite a bit of muscle mass already at 166.7 pounds of lean body mass. I liked how they have a breakdown in the Segmental Lean Analysis section of the muscle mass in different areas of your body. It shows that my legs are pretty even when it comes to muscle but that my right arm is definitely stronger than my left arm. I was actually surprised that my legs were pretty even since I had injured my left knee in February but I guess it caught up in the last month or so of it feeling normal. Because of the amount of muscle I have, the lady told me that that is why my body fat percentage is at 37.3% since it offsets the amount of fat I have. Also, my Basal Metabolic Rate was 2003 kcal which means that my body needs 2003 calories per day just to do it’s basic operations. This was actually a lot higher than the other people in my gym and I’m going to blame it on my muscles hehe. They’re hungry.
Body Fat
Now this was the part where my anxiety started to kick in. Coming into this scan I knew that they were going to confirm what I already know: I’m fat, and I’m fat especially in my mid-section. The scan confirmed that the majority of my fat is in my arms and trunk and on the visceral fat chart I got a score of 19 which is high. I didn’t know this before, but visceral fat is the fat stored around your organs and having a high level of it can put you at higher risk of different conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, etc. Basically all the bad things. I recently went to a health clinic and my blood sugar and cholesterol are all good, but my blood pressure was a little high. I blame it on white-coat syndrome but it’s definitely something that I want to improve.
So based on all this data, they recommend that I lose 49.2 pounds of body fat mass to get to ideal weight. I’ve been looking over the chart and it doesn’t actually say what “ideal weight” would be, but If I just lose like 50 pounds of purely fat that would put me at about 215 which would be a good weight for me. The problem is that with losing fat mass there is also a high probability of losing muscle mass so I’m going to have to figure out how I can keep muscle but lose fat.
Conclusion
Overall I think this was a good scan to get, but I really wish I would have gotten it right when I started CrossFit. I think I got the grumpier lady of the two, so when she was reading my results it seemed like she was telling me if I don’t make drastic changes I’m like going to die in the next 6 weeks. I understand where she’s coming from as a medical professional but honestly I’ve heard this same speech my entire life. This is one of the main reasons I hate going to the doctor because they are always so judgey and just assume that I must be binge eating my face on Twinkies everyday. Everyone is different, and for me it has a lot to do with cultural and hereditary factors (I’m Samoan) as well as me just leading a pretty sedentary lifestyle over the last 10 years. That is why I started to do CrossFit and over the last 6-8 months I’ve seen a huge change in my body as well as my confidence.
I’m excited to see after the 6 weeks what my scan results will look like. Since rugby season is over I will be doing CrossFit on a daily basis and I’m really excited to slap that grumpy test lady in the face with my results 🙂
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