JJ Virgin explains how to track body composition at home with affordable bioimpedance scales like the Oxaline Pro or Renpho, then calibrate them with a DEXA scan every six months. Focus on weekly averages and relative change, not daily fluctuations from hydration and salt.
I have been getting a lot of questions about DEXA and bioimpedance. So first of all, I want you to get a bioimpedance scale for home. The one I have right here on the floor is something called an Oxaline Pro. I like that and the Renpho because they're inexpensive and they report to your phone via Bluetooth. Now here's the thing, bioimpedance works by sending a wave up your body and checking your body's resistance to it to predict your total body water. The more total body water you have, the higher your fat-free mass is versus your fat mass. It is a prediction and it's based on your total body water, which of course will vary day by day. Maybe you had some salt, maybe you're dehydrated, maybe you have to go to the bathroom. That is why when we look at bioimpedance, we are going to look at the relative change over time. So you're going to have it go to your phone every day, right? Step on it. It gives the stats, it goes into your phone, and you look over the course of a week, how are things going? Because what you want to see over the course of a week is that you are increasing total body water, which means you're losing fat. And again, this is a slow process. You may be able to build a pound or two of muscle over a month. You may be able to lose, you know, 1 to 3 pounds of fat each week. It's a slow process, kind of like watching grass grow. But this is going to give you the information to see a relative change, to see if you're going in the right direction. The better information comes from a DEXA scan, but it's not realistic to do this all the time. So this is something I would advise doing like every 6 months. Then you come home, correlate it to the bioimpedance, and then watch your progress over time with the bioimpedance. One more piece to this puzzle is if you can get a little tape measure— again, Renpho does one that will report to your phone— and then every week do a waist and hip measurement as well. This again, once you measure, mantra: you can improve, allows you to track your progress with real data, because otherwise you may be putting on muscle, losing fat, your weight not— might not be changing very much, but you won't be able to really tell the difference until you see it with these measurements. Of course, visually you can tell, and you can tell with how much stronger you're getting, but sometimes you need a little bit more information, and that's where these bioimpedance scales can be great.
