A Numbers Game:
Participants Use Scales, Other Devices To Track Progress
By JENNIFER BALDWIN, Californian staff
writer
e-mail: jbaldwin@bakersfield.com
Posted: Saturday January 24th, 2004, 6:10 PM
Last Updated: Saturday January 24th, 2004, 6:10 PM
It's a Sunday afternoon at Total Woman Health & Fitness and four women, to whom
the scale is no friend, are facing their enemy.
As the Get Fit Bakersfield team Moms Out
Of Shape begin their journey to get fit over the next six months, they must know
the most intimate details about their bodies -- the details that will determine
how many calories they must consume and how much exercise they must perform in
order to build muscle and burn fat.
It all starts at the scale. They do not
say the numbers out loud. Later they will quietly tell their personal trainer,
Deanna Summers.
Weight is one of many measurements used to
determine fitness progress. It is the basis of the weight-to-height ratio called
the body mass index used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to
determine overweight and obesity. The high BMIs of people in the U.S. are the
reason the CDC reports that more than 60 percent of Americans are overweight or
obese.
But weight and BMI are just starting
points, experts say. For one, lean muscle mass is heavier than fat, so athletes
might weigh enough to have overweight BMIs, but they are, in fact, fit.
Secondly, "a lot of people lose weight,
but they're also losing muscle mass and water weight," says Todd Price,
performance manager for Glinn & Giordano Physical Therapy.
For this reason, many trainers also
measure the body composition and fat percentage of their clients.
"The BMI is a good standard for the
general population," Price says. "The reason I'm a believer in body composition
is, are they trying to lose weight or are they trying to lose fat? The body can
only lose one to two pounds of fat a week, with the exception of people who are
very obese, who can lose more," he says.
There are several tools for measuring body
composition. Perhaps the most common is the skinfold caliper, a tool that
pinches and measures the subcutaneous fat -- fat under the skin -- at several
points on the body.
Vernie Ogden of Personal Edge Fitness says
that even though his calipers don't measure the visceral fat -- the fat deeper
within the body -- they are still reliable for tracking body fat loss from month
to month.
Ogden also uses a visual tool for tracking
progress: a camera.
"I take pictures. Before-and-after photos
are very powerful," he says.
Technology has recently changed the way
some trainers measure body composition. Roland Brown of Simply Better Bodies
uses a tool called a Futrex 5000, which sends an infrared beam through the
dominant bicep. Using a device resembling a calculator, Brown enters the age,
weight, gender and activity level of the client. The device takes the infrared
measurement and returns the body fat percentage.
Brown says he uses the Futrex because body
mass index doesn't take into account the activity level -- and thus the lean
muscle mass. The Futrex does.
And even though many of his clients go
from zero to moderate levels of activity within the first couple of weeks of
exercising, the body fat percentage remains consistent enough for him to measure
change.
"It's convenient and it basically gives
people a benchmark from which to start. And that's really what a body fat
percentage is for," Brown says.
Electrical currents can also measure body
fat percentage. Summers and Price use machines for bioelectrical impedance
analysis, or bio-impedance, for short.
The electrical currents -- which cannot by
felt -- measure the body by its ability to conduct electricity.
"Muscle is high in water and conducts
electricity. Fat doesn't conduct electricity well at all," Price says.
Because water is crucial for this test,
clients must be well-hydrated.
Of all the tools for measuring body
composition, some trainers say the most accurate is called hydrostatic -- or
underwater -- measuring, while others say full body scans using X-rays give the
most complete maps of the body. Some trainers say these devices are too
expensive and comprehensive to be necessary.
"Whether you use bio-impedance or skinfold
calipers or whatever, as long as you always use the same thing you can track
your progress," Price says. "The idea is that you use the same mode for
consistent measuring."
Summers says her favorite tool is simply a
measuring tape.
"Your measurements do not lie," she says.
"Your clothing does not lie."
Of the seven Get Fit teams, four are being
measured with bio-impedance machines, two with calipers and one with the Futrex
5000.
While most trainers like to track their
clients' progress from the very beginning,
wellness coach Ron Jones and personal trainer Jade Molina -- who are
working with the team For Better Or For Worse -- say weighing and measuring
people can be a degrading, unmotivating process for some.
"There all kinds of improvements in health
that are not really 'hard' measurements," Jones says. "For example, improvements
in vitality, confidence, and self-efficacy are very significant because these
psychological factors can lead the way for the later hard measurements.
"I think too many times people might just
say, 'Well, the person lost weight but they are still obese, still have a bad
BMI and too high of body fat. So what's the point?' The point is hope," he says.
RonJones.Org
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