TIME OF DAY IS IMPORTANT FOR YOUR FIT 3D SCAN
MEET CLAIRE
Claire has been training with Absolute in our Small Group Personal Training Program for the past 2 months. Her scan day is a Thursday morning, at around 9am. To demonstrate how the time of day can effect your scans, Claire took part in SGPT on Tuesday this week, ate and drank as usual, and scanned in the afternoon, at around 2pm.
So the notable differences between the 2 scans is as follows:
– Thursday Morning vs Tuesday afternoon scan.
– No exercise on Thursday vs 1 hours SGPT training on Tuesday.
– Nothing consumed prior’s to Thursdays scan vs 2 litres of water, multiple coffees, lunch and snacks prior to Tuesdays scan.
See how these very normal daily activities on Tuesday have altered the scan results.
BODY COMPOSITION
When using Tuesday as the baseline and Thursday as the Current scan, Claire has apparently reduced her body fat percentage, weight, fat mass and lean mass in the space of 2 days. This is very unlikely, in fact we would go as far to say impossible.
Realistically Claire has more fluid and food in her body on Tuesday, has engaged and exerted her muscles and therefore “appears” to weigh more in the afternoon than she does in the morning.
ADDITIONAL TORSO
When we take a look at the measurements of the Fit 3D scan, specifically “additional torso” we once again see some difficult to believe losses between the baseline of Tuesday, after food, drink and exercise, vs the current Thursday 9am scan.
To have lost more than 2.5 cm from her natural waist, and almost 5cm from each thigh seems highly improbable.
HOW TO MEASURE CORRECTLY
We recommend that you scan, or take any wellness measurements (weighing on the scales, measuring with a tape measure, using our state of the art Fit 3D scanner) at the same time of day for the most accurate comparison.
Let’s take a look at Claires scans from Thursday 9th March vs Thursday 11th May. It just so happens that Claire scans on the same day, which isn’t essential, but the time of day and the fact that Claire has not consumed any food or drink prior to scanning are the essential similarities for being able to confidently compare the scans.
BODY COMPOSITION
Now we can see a more accurate comparison of Claires body composition we can identify that Claire has lost 2% body fat and 1.7kg in weight. Her fat mass has increased by a small amount, 1.1kg and lean mass is down 2.8kg.
These results are far more believable and when you look at the silhouette below, you can clearly see how Claires waistline has smoothed out, it is not doing the dreaded “muffin top” above her underwear, and the line from rib cage to thigh is straighter. You can also see how the inner thigh has toned up where there is less contact between the legs.
Notably, we can see that the fat mass percentage has increased by 1.1kg, and the lean mass has decreased by 2.8kg. These are not the figures that we would be looking for.
Our recommendation for Claire, a busy single mum who tends to graze rather than eat meals and eat her Childs leftovers at best, is to start focusing on healthier and well proportioned meals with more variety. We understand that everyones life is busy and we don’t all have the exact same struggles.
Claire came to us with two objectives:
1. Start exercising again, which we have now incorporated into a routine and Claire has managed to attend 10 out of 16 SGPT classes that she has been booked in for over the past two months.
2. Make healthier food choices. Which the scan is making evident is not the case at the moment and Claire really needs to focus on this.
Claire will be given a nutrition plan that will up her intake of protein and vegetables, both of which are sparse in her current diet, or in the case of leftovers, processed chicken nuggets, which are not the ideal source of protein.
By upping Claires intake of protein and avoiding processed foods, we would hope to see an increase in lean mass and a decrease in fat mass over the next 2 months.
ADDITIONAL TORSO
The Additional Torso is a far more positive comparison when we look at March vs May. We can see that Claire has lost cm from all of her metrics, and most notably over 10cm from her natural waist. This shows that the new exercise regime is working, and that her body is toning up and that the bloating has subsided thanks to the introduction of exercise and at least 2litres of water per day.
Interestingly, the loss in both thighs is almost the same with the Tuesday vs Thursday scan as it is on the March vs May. This can be for a number of reasons, such as:
1). Claire had taken part in SGPT on Tuesday, and therefore her muscles would have been engaged, exercised and therefore somewhat “pumped”.
2). Claire may well have taken a slightly different stance/posture that could have tensed or relaxed her calf muscles – this would have produced different results. If she were to take two scans on the same day, at the same time, but one with tensed legs and the other with relaxed, the results could differ – so it is important to be as relaxed as possible during the scans.
Overall, Claires scan results show us that she needs to improve her diet to make the most of her exercise regime and that if she carries on as she is, and adds a better diet to her routine, she will continue to keep losing cm all over and most importantly improve her overall body composition as well.
THE TAKEAWAY
We advise that you do the following to ensure that you are taking accurate results driven measurements:
- Choose the same time of day.
- Wear the same clothing (or none) to get the most accurate results.
- Don’t eat or drink (or workout) prior to measuring.
- Don’t be tempted to measure more regularly that once a week. We recommend clients scan every month.
- Don’t be templated to read too much into the results. Measurements should be a guide to your progress only, and not the be all and end all of your effort.
- Don’t expect too much too soon. Results will take time. Give yourself time.
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