Body composition refers to the amounts of fat, muscle, bone, and water in your body. Your total body weight includes all of these components. Whether you’re a young athlete or a busy mom trying to keep pace with your toddler, your body requires a specific percentage of each component to function optimally.
Thus, the total number of pounds you weigh is not always an indicator of health. You may need to lose excess pounds, but what really matters is whether your body composition is adequately balanced.
Body composition optimization is discovering first what your current composition is and then creating a plan that restores your body’s balance. For instance, the optimal body fat percentage is somewhere between 6% and 16% (higher for women than men). If you’re at 21% body fat, your goal is to drop back into optimal range. To do that, you may need to focus on building lean muscle mass as well as actually losing pounds of body fat.
The physicians at The Ash Center use a series of diagnostic evaluations to determine what your current body composition is. Then they develop a plan that includes healthy nutrition and physical activity to help you develop the appropriate body composition.
A nutritionally balanced diet and appropriate activity levels are certainly important, and the professionals at The Ash Center design a plan that helps you achieve your goals. But because these integrative medicine specialists are focused on your overall health, they also consider hormone levels and other critical factors when determining your body composition.
The foundation of integrative medicine is to consider the whole patient, focusing on your health from a body, mind, and emotional perspective. Thus, the goal in “weight loss” is to discover what created the imbalance in the first place. This may include problems with your digestive system, emotional eating, a misunderstanding of what healthy nutrition is, or a combination of issues.
The health care professionals at The Ash Center desire to partner with you in creating a lifelong plan for health that includes, but is never limited to, advising you to exercise regularly and eat a healthy diet. Instead, they create a comprehensive program that’s tailored to your individual circumstances.
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