 I am obese. It all started when Victoria and I agreed to participate in a research study being carried out at the Brighton University here in East Sussex. This involved us having what's called a DEXA scan. It's a full body composition scan which measures your muscle mass, your bone density and your body fat percentage. It's seen as the gold standard in body composition accuracy and the numbers do not lie. Both Victoria and I had to lie on the DEXA scan for a 7 minute full body scan followed by a 1 minute abdomen scan and then a 1 minute scan of the left hip, after which we were presented with a printout of our results. This is my skeleton. How cool is that? BMC stands for Bone Mineral Content and it's measured in grams. So my skeleton weighs 2.25 kilograms. BMD is bone mineral density. Essentially how strong are your bones? Any score below minus 2.5 and you are likely going to be diagnosed with osteoporosis. Other things to note here are the T score and the Z score. These figures show how you compare to the general population. In this case the T score is my data compared to that of an average 30 year old white male and the Z score is my results compared to other males of my age. The graph here shows that my BMD is just above average and well within the normal range which is nice. The closer scan on the neck of my femur again shows that I am within the normal range so nothing to worry about here. In fact Victoria and I can both continue running happy in the knowledge that our bones are strong and our hips are not about to snap. So that's the skeleton. Well what about the rest of the body? Muscle and fat. Let's have a look at that data. The table here shows total mass so that is the weight of my skeleton, muscle and fat together. On the day I was scanned my total body weight was 72.3 kilograms. Lean is muscle and BMC you'll recall is bone mineral content. These two are scored together as bones weigh very little as a percentage of your whole body. Essentially the lean muscle in my body weighs 51.7 kilograms if we take away the 2.25 kilograms of BMC. It was interesting to note as a runner that my left leg has 400 grams or so more muscle mass than my right leg which is strange because since I had a severe sciatica attack some eight years ago I've always considered my left leg to be somewhat weaker. So if you have any idea why that might be then do let me know in the comments. Also before we look at how obese I am now's a good time to whack the like button and subscribe to the channel if you're finding the content useful or interesting. If it's adding value to your day there are plenty more videos like this on the way so click the notifications bell and we can get on. Don't worry I can wait. All done? Okay. We've all heard of BMI your body mass index. Well it turns out that scientists don't rate or use BMI as a tool for assessing your risk of heart disease or diabetes simply because it only measures weight against height. A muscly 6 foot tall 100 meter sprinter weighing 90 kilograms would have the same BMI as a couch potato of the same height and weight. Both would have a score of 26 and be classed as overweight. For the record my BMI came out as 23.7 which is towards the higher end of normal. It's when we look at the fat mass data that things start to get a bit worrying. Remember at the beginning I said I had an abdominal scan. That was to measure what's called visceral adipose tissue or VAT. VAT is a type of fat which lies deep within your abdominal wall and surrounds your organs. Some levels of visceral fat are healthy and help to protect your organs. However there is increasing evidence that too much visceral fat can lead to heart disease, diabetes and stroke. A VAT score of between 50 and 100 is considered normal. My score was almost 94 which is right at the top end of normal. By now I'm starting to panic. All those lattes with full fat milk, chocolate chip cookies at Starbucks, pizza for breakfast … alright maybe I don't have pizza for breakfast but you get the point. The nail in the coffin came when I checked my total body fat percentage, 25.5%. I thought I'd better double check with Alexa. What is 18.5 as a percentage of 72.3? 18.5 is 25.59% of 72.3. I then checked this fact sheet from the University of Pennsylvania. Being over 24.7% body fat is poor and poses an increased risk to health. And then I found this. Oh my god that can't be right. I know I thought I'll check the scales. We've got some body composition scales from Renfoe. They'll be alright won't we? They'll tell me everything's okay. I stripped off and stood on the scales. I am obese. How could this happen? I run almost every day. I've run 140 marathons for crying out loud. I'm fit aren't I? Once I'd stopped crying and got over the shock of it all, I actually noticed how accurate the body composition scales are compared to the gold standard of the DEXA scan. BMC or bone mass is very close. Muscle mass and fat free body weight are both pretty much bang on given that my weight was slightly different when I measured it two days later. If you'd like to buy some of the Renfoe scales then you can use my affiliate link in the description. It doesn't cost you a penny but it does give me a little kick back to help grow the channel. But we are not done. Now yes, according to many sources I am officially classed as obese. But when we look at the age matched DEXA scan data, you'll see that I am on the 22nd percentile. Which means that 78% of white males my age have a higher body fat percentage. And 45% of 30 year old men have more body fat than me. But that doesn't mean I'm off the hook at all. It's time to start modifying the diet to get rid of some of that visceral fat and lower my total body fat percentage. And the DEXA scan can help with that when combined with a measurement of your resting metabolic rate. Your RMR is the number of calories your body burns when it's at rest. Knowing this can help you refine your calorific intake in line with how active you are so that you can continue running and achieve the correct calorific deficit for healthy weight loss. Have you had a DEXA scan? What was your experience? Did it lead to a change in lifestyle or a change in eating habits? Let me know down in the comments below. And I'd love you to join me on my running journey next year. Whether it's in person at one of the events that I do, whether it's virtually in some of the Zwift run training workouts that we do online, or simply by subscribing to the channel and becoming part of the FMR family. Thank you so much for watching and we'll see you on the start line next time. Bye bye.