In Body scan results ☹️

[ChiaraRimini]

newbie here. I’m 51, just lost 3 stone on Mounjaro as I was borderline obese, starting BMI 31. My BMI is now 23.5.
i just started at the gym 2 weeks ago, with the aim of building up my strength and muscle mass now my weight is back in a healthy range. I had a session with a PT who has designed me 2 x full body workouts to do each week.
the gym has one of these In Body fancy scales and I’m a bit horrified by my baseline results which are 25.5% skeletal muscle mass and 34% body fat. So I am way below normal muscle mass for my age as well as still being obese according to them!
hopefully the only way from here is an improvement as I start my gym journey, just wondered if anyone can relate.

I wasnt much better when i started but i looked at it another way. You now have a base line (Who cares what the figures are). From a positive point of view every single % you improve your skeletal muscle and reduce your body fat is a win.

It soon becomes addictive to make those changes and you will get lots of wins.

Well you’ve only been going two weeks, and I’m assuming not previously an athlete, so the whole point of training and using those machines is to benchmark your progress, not berate yourself before you’ve even started. At some point those numbers will look better and you’ll be ecstatic!

You will never fully heal your relationship with food and your body if you insist on hating yourself.

Have you any capacity for a third workout? Only going twice a week seems like very long gaps between training.

Also, muscle mass on those machines is impacted by how well hydrated you are. So if you’re a bit dry then the figure will look worse.

Thanks both. I’m starting from a base of low activity but I’ve never thought of myself as weak so the result was a bit of a shock. Anyway, hopefully I can only see improvement from here. I’m doing 2 workouts a week to start with as that seemed achievable, but will have a review with the PT at the 6 week point and could move to 3 x week then.

It takes ages to build muscle for women, especially if you’ve not been active. You’re looking at a minimum of a year - but more like 5 years - of consistent steady work to achieve real body recomposition. You’ll see “newbie gains” after about 6 months or so, but it might take longer if you haven’t been doing much physical exercise up until now. And of course, Mounjaro takes away muscle as well as fat.

If you have a search of “body recomp” or body recomposition on YouTube you’ll see some guidance.

You need to lift weights with progressive overload (and go properly heavy- none of those pump class weights!) consistently. And you need to up your protein intake to feed your muscle growth, within a calorie controlled diet. It’s perfectly possible to get a high level of protein (around 120g per day) while eating around 1500 calories.

The great thing about this is that lifting heavy weights is gun! And hugely empowering to be really strong. I love being able to lift around 1.4 times my body weight.

Fun, not gun Although “sun’s out, guns out” is far more possible if you’ve been bench pressing and got the post-workout pump!

Those scales are not accurate - however, it's always a good thing to improve your body composition. 2 workouts is not a bad start, the key is to establish a habit.

It’s hard to build muscle, need to eat enough protein, likely 120-150g a day (this is quite hard to do). Also ideally weight lifting 3-4 times a week, and need to lift heavy. Realistically will take 2-3 YEARS to get it up to average.

The science behind the body scan scales is very sketchy. The only way to really get body fat percentage etc is full body MRI.

Ah thanks all.
it was mid afternoon and part-way through a workout when I did the scan so probably not the best timing.
I’ve started recording my workouts using the Strong app. Early days but each workout I am able to do more reps or lift heavier and I’m loving it!
I’m already lifting more than the strengthlevel.com beginner level 1RM standards for all the exercises I’m doing, so I feel reassured that I’m not actually a complete weakling.
Ive started taking creatine 5g/day and am changing my diet to get in more protein, although I can see it’s going to be a challenge.
The gym have confirmed I get a free review with the PT at the 6 week mark when I’ll talk to him about going to 3 workouts a week.
thanks for all your advice!

Thinking logically, if you have around 100 waking hours a week, only exercising for two of them isn’t going to change much.

Try to go to the gym 3-4 times a week, plus increase your steps where possible; an extra 15-20 mins of walking every day will really add up over time.