There are three units for visceral fat - mass (in grams), volume and area. While mass is the most logical, we use area as the standard metric, as the values themselves are smaller than those for mass and volume and guidance thresholds have been placed on them (100 and 160cm^2). The unit is immaterial because the lower the better.

I've had a scan in Denmark where they give VAT in grams. In my case it dropped from 400 grams to 220 grams in 5 months. I'd like to match that up with your benchmarks. I'm 188 cm tall.

@@hanshurvig Unless the scan was done on a Hologic Discovery then there is no correlation. If it was, then 400g of visceral equates to about 83 for our metric. 220g equates to 46, which is pretty good. You lost 45% of visceral fat, which (I'm guessing) might have seen a 30% reduction in total fat mass (which is a lot for five months). That is NOT saying it might have dropped by 30 percentage points (eg, from 45% to 15% fat) but by 30% (eg, from 25kg to 17.5kg of fat). If you signficantly increased exercise over that period then the rate of fat loss may have been smaller. Just a guess!

Thx a lot, I'll check the brand. My fat went from 19 kg to 12 kg, just as you estimated. I exercised and gained a bit of appendicular lean mass.

@@Bodyscan No access. This link is private

@@kiryl9442 OK, sorry about that, please try again. Or it is definitely available here: bodyscanuk.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Infographic_2024_1_page.pdf

​@@Bodyscan thanks, now link works. Where I can download tables from dexa datascans with male/female percentiles lean mass, body fat, arms/legs lean etc?

Why?

Go on?

I don't understand your question. What numbers? On a Hologic DEXA report? Where? More information required.

Longer life

Health

Hi Jessa. The percentile charts for all the data points are Bodyscan data over the last nine years. While it is not a random sample of the UK population it is huge and broad.

"in a normal BMI" is a completely irrelevant metric in this case, if you want to loose fat... loose fat. Period

We are only in the UK, I'm afraid :(

No, the DEXA scan is not granular enough to measure or see fat around individual organs. DEXA measures a small sliver of internal fat in the android (belly) region and this measurement is consistent with detailed, granular fat measurements by CT scan. Utlimately, it doesn't really matter where you store visceral fat - the less the better. Knowing which organs you're storing fat around doesn't help you lose it.

Fair call, and we have changed the title of the video to reflect that. Here's our 'how to read' guide: drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1MDuv-aLBoYEa0zrMZc5cVJwposCMRsn6

For everyone wanting some interpretation, here is Bodyscan's new (2024) infographic on reading a Hologic DEXA body scan report. Copy and paste the link into your browser: drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1MDuv-aLBoYEa0zrMZc5cVJwposCMRsn6

The dose for the operator is even lower than it is for the customer because we are not in the path of the beam. However, the operator may perform many scans a day, so they either sit behind a shielding screen or at a distance where the radiation is zero. Bodyscan's radiological procedures are audited annually by an independent radiation protection advisor (RPA) to ensure the dose and risk to clients and operators are as low as reasonably practical (ALARP).

@@Bodyscan Thanks for reply. I'm just still answering, if the dose at distance is zero, why also shield screen taken into consideration?

@@misterc3835 I said "they either sit behind a shielding screen OR at a distance where the radiation is zero". If there is space in the room for the operator to sit away then no shield is needed. If the room is small and the operator is forced to sit nearer the machine then we use a shield.

This is common knowledge, no? Bananas emit low level radiation

Thanks, Steve. If you're in the UK, we hope to see you soon!

Hi there. Sorry, not sure which episode, other than that it was a weight-loss special - all the people committed to lose weight, and the Bodyscan boys were the first up on the programme. It was quite a while ago now - the second scan was filmed in May 2018, so maybe it went out at the end of 2018 or early in 2019.

Glad you enjoyed it, Simon! Hope to see you at Bodyscan to discover your own LMI!

I'm not sure "laconic" is how most people would describe me(!) but thank you very much. Pleased to offer some context and extra depth to Peter Attia's favoured DEXA metrics.

Thanks for the feedback and comments - your results sound pretty good - mid 50s and a 4kg change in body composition. Gaining 2kg of lean in four months at maintenance calories is no mean feat!

Glad you liked it!

Lean mass on a DEXA scan includes water, as well as all fat-free soft tissue. Therefore you're right - big inceases in body water will increase your weight and the proportion (percentage) of "lean mass" and simultaneoulsy reduce the percentage of body fat. But the effect is typically small. If an 83kg person has 20kg fat then their BF% is 24%. If body water increases by 2kg, then they now have the same amount of fat in an 85kg body = 23.5% body fat. At Bodyscan, because BF% is affected by lean mass, we use a better metric on the report known as FMI (fat mass index). It's how much fat you have relative to your height, and is unaffected by muscle/lean mass. There is a separate video about it on this channel.

@Bodyscan Track bodyweight using one week daily average. Get Total Fat Mass using DEXA. Calculate bf% yourself if it matters to you. I just track Fat Mass for the most part.

Hi Tim. Don't be disheartened. The ratio of lean loss against fat loss tends to increase as you lose more lean/fat/weight because there is less energy available, so the body does not prioritise muscle protection. In technical terms, muscle protein synthesis (the process of building and repairing muscle) is compromised, which increases the risk of muscle protein breakdown exceeding muscle protein synthesis. Taking weight loss slowly and increasing protein intake (as you are doing) are the right things to do. As you can read in our blog 'How much protein do I need to build muscle?' protein can be as high as 2.3g-3.3g per kilo of bodyweight to provide maximum protection against lean loss. A good resistance programme for hypertrophy (muscle mass) should include intensity AND volume. At the very simplest level, that might mean four sets of 12-15 reps going to failure for every set (and hence the weight lifted per set may well decrease across the four sets in order to keep the volume (reps) up. (Remember we measure lean mass not muscle strength; there is a a correlation but it's not exact.) Volume is influenced by frequency and applies to each body part/muscle group you train. Doing full-body three times a week means more volume per body part than a split upper-lower four times a week. Also, 75-90 minutes in the gym will enable you to do more volume (exercises) than 45-60 minutes. Take a look at Jeff Nippard's channel for some good, science-backed workouts. And finally, genetics plays a part. The worst result I have seen was a man who lost 6kg of weight and only one of it was fat :( No resistance work and low protein. Keep at it and we'll see you again soon.

Ok interesting stuff. It's funny the naive ideas we have about weight loss, having the data makes it much easier to make informed choices.

Hi. Yes, you can gain muscle eating at maintenance, but all muscle gain is highly dependent on the quality of your training programme. You might have a high octane fuel (in the form of sufficient calories and high protein) but if the car isn't tuned or you're in the wrong gear (your programme isn't optimised in the aspects of volume, intensity and technique), then you'll be wasting a lot of effort. Because your weight must stay the same at maintenance, muscle gains made at maintenance must necessarily be offset by a loss in fat - this is classic body recomposition: eg, a kilo of muscle gained for a kilo of fat lost. But recomp of this type is only worth attempting when fat is fairly low, because gains in muscle are typically much smaller and slower than reductions in fat. If you have 20kg of fat to lose, this is far more than you will ever gain in muscle - muscle gain over a year might be only 2-5kg, so wait till you have about the same excess fat to lose before you attempt one-for-one body recomp in this way. Also, muscle definition (what most people call 'tone') is a product of lower fat, much more than increased muscle. Muscle gain is optimised when you are in a SMALL calorie surplus (what you call excess), probably around 5% of your maintenance calories and rarely a surplus above 200-300 calories. With a great, consistent weights programme, your body weight will typically increase by between 0.5% and 2% per month (and probably at the lower end of that scale). So, for a 70kg man, that might be just 350g a month (4.2kg a year). You will, of course, be at risk of fat gain when you're in a surplus, but by starting with that very small surplus (100 cals, say), just track how things go - if you can pinch more around your waist then you are gaining fat, meaning either the surplus is too high or your programme is not optimised (not enough volume, intensity, frequency, poor technique) or both. The biggest reason people don't put on muscle is that they simply don't work hard enough. Think of muscle gain as a long-term project. Finally, you cannot force feed a gain. Anything above that small surplus is guaranteed to go to fat. Fine-tune the programme and you can convert a few more surplus calories to muscle but there is a limit. The gyms are full of 'permabulks' - overweight and obese men who are forever eating in a huge surplus and just piling on more fat.

The DEXA scan measures a sliver of internal fat in the abdominal area and gives this result in mass, volume and area. The thresholds have been applied to the area metric.