DEXA body composition scanning in Scottsdale
A bathroom scale gives you one number, and it is the least useful number in the room. It cannot tell you whether the four pounds you lost last month were fat or muscle, and those two things are not interchangeable.
A DEXA scan can. Ours takes about thirty minutes at the clinic on East Raintree Drive, costs $125, and comes with a review of what the numbers actually mean.
What a DEXA scan measures
Body fat percentage
Not estimated from height and weight, but measured — and broken down by region, so you can see where it actually sits.
Lean mass
How much muscle you are carrying, and whether it is holding steady as your weight changes. This is the number most people never see.
Visceral fat
The fat around the organs rather than under the skin. It is the kind most associated with metabolic risk, and it is invisible from the outside.
Why it matters if you are losing weight
Any substantial weight loss includes some lean tissue, not only fat. That is true of dieting, of bariatric surgery and of GLP-1 medication. How much it matters, and how far it can be offset by protein intake and resistance training, is actively debated among clinicians and researchers.
What is not debated is that a scale cannot tell you which you are losing. Two people can drop the same fifteen pounds and have completely different results underneath — and neither of them would know from weighing themselves.
If you are on a weight loss medication, a scan at the start and another a few months in turns a guess into a measurement. If the lean mass is holding, you know. If it is not, you can do something about it while there is still time to act.
This is also why we did not build a weight loss programme that is only a prescription. The medication is one part. Knowing what it is doing to your body is another, and it needs a machine rather than an app.
What it costs
No membership and no package required. You can book a single scan, and plenty of people do exactly that — come in once, get the numbers, and decide what to do with them.
If you are also considering medication, the weight loss side of the practice is prescribed online and shipped, and can be done whether or not you ever come in for a scan.
Common questions
How long does the scan take?
Do I need a referral?
How is it different from a smart scale or a body fat caliper?
How often should I have one?
9360 E Raintree Dr, Suite 103
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
480-477-6334
Treating patients in Scottsdale since 2011.
More about the clinic and what moved online