There Is A Method to the Madness
This is a podcast where I will be discussing all aspects of physical fitness. I am an exercise physiologist and personal trainer and owner of Maxwell's Fitness Programs for the last 25 years. My passion is health and fitness and I am excited to share my views, some stories, interviews and much more with you.
There Is A Method to the Madness
Why That Number on Your Scale Is Lying to You
Welcome to there is a Method to the Madness. My name is Rob Maxwell and I'm an exercise physiologist and personal trainer. I am the owner of Maxwell's Fitness Programs and I've been in business since 1994. The purpose of this podcast is to get to the real deal of what really works and, most importantly, why things work. Hence the name there is a method to the madness. Before I get to today's show, I want to thank Jonathan and Lynn Gildan of the Gildan Group at Realty Pros. They are committed to providing the highest level of customer service in home sales. Why don't you give them a shout and figure out what your home is worth? 386-451-2412. 386-451-2412.
Speaker 1:It is time to talk about some fitness issues today. I hope everybody enjoyed the interview I did in the last podcast with Ellen Caravati Talking about the benefits of massage. I think she did an excellent job and so many people have now said something to me about that that they didn't know that massage therapists worked on TMJ and things like that. So that was a pretty cool interview. If you missed it, go back and check it out. But now I'm going to launch into another subject that's been bouncing around a lot lately and that is it's a good thing, and that is body composition or body fat. Now, the reason why it's been bouncing around more lately because the current and I you know, as people know, in emails, podcasts, training, there's no place for politics, so this is not a political thing one way or the other, because you could put anybody's in my opinion, most anybody in you know certain forms of leadership in this and it would come out the same. But anyway, the current president's, I guess physical was recent and they listed him at a given height and a given weight and, quite frankly, I don't even really remember what it was exactly. I have an idea, but it really doesn't matter. So there was a lot of memes going around the past week or two weeks of like him next to people, two people, one on the right, one on the left of being like jacked, at the same height and the same weight. You know just different body types but showing, basically you know what I guess are celebrities, people who are well known, so they know, like roughly their height and weight and so you know they're trying to portray how different a given height and weight will be based on body fat and musculature. So, again, the reason why those were going around is because, like anything in the political world right or left, people like to take shots, and that's neither here nor there, but that's where I saw it and it made me think I don't know that enough.
Speaker 1:Enough people are actually talking about body composition as much as they used to, and I recently listened to a obesity specialist and she did a really good job talking about. This was on another podcast I listened to and she did a really good job talking about how we have to be paying attention to body composition. So that's what I want to do. I want to make sure that people understand it, because it's not weight loss that we really should be seeking. It's fat loss.
Speaker 1:I don't think you're going to find anybody that says, oh, I want to lose muscle. I mean, there might be some people who feel like they have too much bulky muscle that they don't mind losing everything, but I don't know. I think that's really unhealthy and I think that that kind of falls in line with a little bit of body dysmorphia. So I think that's pretty rare. I think when people say they want to lose weight, what they really mean is body fat, because extra adipose tissue is not doing anybody any good. So we want to lose extra adipose tissue when we have weight to lose and we want to preserve as much muscle as we can.
Speaker 1:So, as I've spoken about in the past, body composition is one of the five health components of physical fitness, with the other four being muscular strength, muscular endurance, cardiorespiratory fitness, with the other four being muscular strength, muscular endurance, cardiorespiratory fitness and flexibility. Mobility. Body composition is number five. So these five things are the things that we always need to continue to work on to be physically fit. So nobody says body weight is one of the fitness components, no, body composition, the difference between your fat mass and your lean mass, that is body fat. Let's just take a male, 200 pounds, 10% body fat, and that's going to look like a really fit guy. That's going to be a pretty jacked looking football player, maybe bodybuilder, but that's going to be a pretty jacked guy. Or you can take a and this is the same height, let's just say six foot, just for consistency basis. Take a six foot, 200 pound male at 30% body fat, which is an obesity range, and he is not going to look like a fit male, he's going to look like an overweight, if not obese male. So notice, I didn't change the weight, I changed the body composition because too often we'll look at a height, heightened weight and we'll make a judgment about it when it's completely not fair.
Speaker 1:I can remember years ago showing pictures of some of my students to some of my students, of Gabrielle Reese, who is a phenomenal athlete, and I would say how much do you think she weighs? And you know she was wearing workout clothes or something. And they'd say, oh, I don't know Like she looks. Like 120 pounds. I'd say the height, she was tall. And they'd say, yeah, still 125, maybe because she's taller, 130. And I'd look at them and say, and this picture here, 125, maybe because she's taller, 130. And I'd look at them and say, in this picture here and it literally was underneath it no-transcript, but because she was so muscular, tall, muscular, she was leaner, so the appearance of being thin, because the body composition was so good, so healthy. I mean everybody, I don't know if look her up, if you don't know who she is, but healthy, like just a very healthy body composition. I do not know what her body fat was in that particular picture, but it's all about body composition, it's not about the weight.
Speaker 1:And where we run into trouble, I think, is that oftentimes we don't know our body composition and when you go to your doctor's office you know they're going to use height weight. They're going to use weight and then they're going to calculate that into BMI body mass index. But BMI is not a reflection of body composition. I mean, your best practitioners are going to tell you that they're not made. It's not made for athletic populations. You can take again that same mouse six foot, 200 pounds. My guess is I don't have the chart in front of me but he's going to be at a overweight category with the BMI, even if he's 10% body fat, and that is just ludicrous. So that's just not true at all.
Speaker 1:It's going to come down to body composition and the more and more that physicians are now getting into these different weight loss drugs, they're realizing well, we also need to be assessing body composition because when people lose weight and when people lose weight on a restrictive diet and a lot of the drugs are kind of, you know, forcing people into more of a restricted diet I mean it's controlling the appetite they end up a lot of the people end up losing a lot of muscle mass, which isn't good. So nobody wants that, including the physicians, and I'm sure the patient doesn't either. The patient just may not know, including the physicians, and I'm sure the patient doesn't either. The patient just may not know. So we have to be paying attention to body composition, the difference between the fat mass and the lean mass, and the good weight loss doctors are focusing on the weight loss. Physicians are focusing on the fact that we want to preserve as much muscle as possible, because muscle is metabolic, muscle is active, muscle burns calories. So when we hear people say, well, your metabolism slows down as you age, that's not necessarily true. If you are maintaining your muscle mass, if you are keeping as much muscle on your body as possible, then your metabolism is not slowing down. It is the muscle we lose. Age-related muscle mass loss is called sarcopenia, and that happens. You use it or lose it. So that happens if you're not working out, if you're not strength training. But if you're strength training, you are keeping the muscle on your body. What happens with some of these weight loss drugs is the appetite is suppressed, they're not eating as much, they're not eating as much quality food and so they're losing more muscle. Nobody wants that Because, let's say, the person gets off their medication. Well, they're going to be very prone to putting more weight back on, and even more so now if they lost the muscle. So we don't want that.
Speaker 1:Now, average or healthy body composition levels, I mean, you know there are norms. I also. I always tell people that with everything it's about making improvements versus classifications. But between 10 and 20% for males is considered to be pretty darn healthy. You're going to see males under 10% that are in certain athletic populations, like a lot of the guys in the NBA, are going to be between 5 and 10%. Bodybuilder males on stage are going to be around 5%, if not lower. So you are going to see classes below 10%. But really healthy is between 10% and 20% for males. For females, really healthy is between 20% and 30%. And you're going to see women down in the 16-15% body fat ranges when they're in certain sports that are requiring more leanness. You're going to see female bodybuilders down in that very low range. You're going to see some of the volleyball players, some of the basketball players, lower than 20%. But a good benchmark is going to be between 20 and 30% for females. But again, it's going no matter your height, by the way, height it doesn't matter with body composition. So you know again, but it's most important to think about improvement of where you are.
Speaker 1:I've always done body composition. I don't do it on everybody because if the goal is not weight loss, if the goal is not fat loss, I don't push what somebody's goal should be. If somebody comes in and says and that's the majority of people nowadays, which I think is a good thing, I mean ADL is activity of daily living has been number the number one driver of people into the gyms in the past decade and that's a good thing People realizing you know, the only way I'm going to continue to do the things that I really like to do is to keep my strength up. So that's it. So when people say that and we talk about other fitness goals, if they don't bring up losing body fat, I don't bring it up. I don't push goals on people. People call me as a professional. They call us as professionals. They tell us what they're seeking and we have a consultation and we decide if we can help them and how we're going to help them. But when people's goal is to lose weight and they word it that way, I always reword it with them and say you mean lose fat, we do body composition. I had a client in the past couple of years do a physique competition. She did very well, so we would do body composition. I would check her body fat.
Speaker 1:Now in places like me I can't afford to put a DEXA machine it's like a bone scan machine in the gym. That's well over a $50,000 unit. Some doctor's offices have them. They're like the gold standard of how to do body composition is a DEXA screen. I think a place in Orlando. So if you don't know where I'm located because you're not local to Daytona Beach, I live in Daytona Beach, so, local to us, the closest would be Orlando. They have a DEXA screening. I believe there are some people that literally will do MRIs, but those are like medical procedures and the DEXA is very expensive and it's usually associated with a hospital where they can use it for other scans.
Speaker 1:People like me are going to use skinfold calipers or what we call BIA, bioelectrical impedance. That's not as accurate. The bioelectrical impedance that's basically the handheld gizmo. We use it to get a reading on people, but it isn't as accurate. It's better than not knowing. It is better than not knowing any level of body composition, but it's really reliant upon the person being like really well hydrated, which there's no guarantee that they are, even if they think they are, and there's like a 9% standard deviation of inaccuracy with bioelectrical impedance. But it is better than nothing. But what I like to use are what is called skinfold calipers. They have a 3.5% standard deviation, so the accuracy is far greater and the error is in user error. So if you've been doing it a really long time, like I have, there's going to be less user error, so it's more accurate.
Speaker 1:It's more time consuming, but you know that's doesn't matter. I mean that's what you want to do. But I bring that up because, like at health fairs, I mean that's what you want to do. But I bring that up because, like at health fairs, you might see the handheld things sometimes. I mean I've even brought them to different wellness fairs. I've been to because obviously you're not going to pinch, pull people's fat in public and it would take longer handheld gizmo out that people can simply program in after answering five questions and then test it Again.
Speaker 1:It at least starts the conversation of why body composition matters so much more than knowing just your weight. So I'll finish this up by simply saying this If you are concerned about your health and fitness and body composition being one of your concerns, or if you're calling it weight loss or weight maintenance being one of your concerns, then you need to have your body fat checked. You need to. Simply, if you are a client of mine, a client of our gym, you need to say, hey, you know, I want to check body fat again, or check it for the first time. If you're listening somewhere else, and this is a concern you need to ask a qualified person to check your body fat and, again, you're going to want to make sure that they're using the most accurate tool at their disposal.
Speaker 1:But knowing your body composition is extremely critical. That way, you can track the weight you're losing. What is it? Is it fat, is it muscle? Because ultimately, the goal is very simple you want to preserve as much muscle as possible and lose as much fat. All right, hope that helps. Please hit download. See you next time. Thank you for listening to today's program. I ask you to please follow the show wherever you. See you next time. Area's premier garage door company. They have the best product. They have the best service. I personally vouch for Jeff and Zach Hawk, the owners. They are great people with a great company. If you have any garage door needs. Please give them a shout at 386-222-3165.
