InBody Scan in Edina: Muscle, Fat and Body Water in 60 Seconds

It is a body composition test. You stand barefoot on the InBody 770 and hold its hand electrodes while it sends a small electrical signal through your body at several frequencies. The resistance that signal meets is used to calculate how much of your weight is muscle, fat, water and minerals, reported for each arm, each leg and your trunk. The measurement itself takes about a minute.

A scan is $74 and includes your printed result sheet. There is no package or membership required. If you want a clinician to interpret your results and build a plan with you, book the $84 Initial Health Assessment, which is the starting point for every consultation at Aervita.

No. Anyone can book a scan without an assessment, referral or membership. Consultations are different. If you want your results reviewed and a plan built around them, we ask you to book the Initial Health Assessment first, so we can take a proper history and give advice that actually fits you.

Your result sheet labels each measurement, and our team can show you where each number sits on the page. A clinical interpretation of your results, with advice and a plan, is a consultation. Consultations at Aervita begin with the $84 Initial Health Assessment, so we have your full history before we make recommendations.

The InBody 770 measures each segment of your body at six frequencies instead of relying on one overall reading. Like every BIA device, though, it is sensitive to hydration, food and recent exercise. The most reliable way to use it is to scan under the same conditions each time and watch the trend across several InBody scans rather than reading too much into one.

Wear light, comfortable clothing. You will remove your shoes and socks, because your bare hands and feet need to touch the electrodes, and we ask you to take off watches, heavy jewelry and anything metal you can easily remove. Skip lotion on your hands and feet that day so the electrodes make good contact.

People with a pacemaker, defibrillator or other implanted electronic medical device should not be tested on the InBody 770, as the manufacturer’s manual states. InBody also does not recommend testing during pregnancy, because the extra body water skews the numbers. For everyone else, the signal is very low level and most people do not feel it at all.

Many people rescan every four to eight weeks, which is long enough to see real change in muscle and fat without chasing day to day water swings. If you are in a structured program, your plan may set specific checkpoints. Whatever the interval, keep it consistent: same time of day, same preparation, same analyzer.

Visceral fat is the fat stored around your internal organs, as opposed to the fat just under your skin. Higher visceral fat is associated with cardiometabolic risk, which is why it is one of the numbers we watch in our cardiometabolic program. Your scan reports your visceral fat area so you can see whether it is moving in the right direction.

Phase angle comes from how your cells respond to the electrical signal, and it is often used as a general marker of cell health and body cell mass. Higher values are typical of people with more muscle and good hydration. It is most useful as a trend over time rather than as a standalone verdict.

ECW/TBW is the ratio of extracellular water, the water outside your cells, to your total body water. It shows how your body water is balanced. A ratio outside the typical range can reflect things like swelling or recent injury, but it is not a diagnosis on its own, which is why we review it in context during an Initial Health Assessment.

A DEXA scan uses low dose X-rays and is often used as a reference method in research. InBody uses bioelectrical impedance, involves no radiation and takes about a minute, which makes it easy to repeat. For tracking your own progress, scanning consistently under the same conditions matters more than which method you choose.

Many people on GLP-1 medications want to know whether they are losing fat or muscle, and an InBody test is a simple way to see it. Repeat scans show how your skeletal muscle and body fat change as your weight comes down. We do not prescribe or manage those medications, so share your results with the provider who does.

Home scales that estimate body fat usually send a signal from foot to foot, so they mostly measure your legs and estimate the rest. The InBody 770 uses hand and foot electrodes and measures your arms, legs and trunk separately at multiple frequencies. Home devices also differ in how they calculate results, so treat numbers from different devices as separate trends rather than comparing them directly.

Skeletal muscle mass is the muscle attached to your bones, the muscle you can train and build. It is one of the most useful numbers on the result sheet because it tends to drop quietly with age, inactivity and aggressive dieting. Watching it over time tells you whether your training and nutrition are protecting the muscle you have.

Segmental lean analysis shows the lean mass in each arm, each leg and your trunk, and compares it with what is typical for your height. It can reveal an imbalance between sides, such as after an injury, a surgery or years of favoring one leg, and it helps you see where a training program is adding muscle.

Basal metabolic rate, or BMR, is an estimate of the calories your body uses at complete rest. On the InBody 770 it is calculated from your lean body mass, so building muscle tends to raise it. It is a helpful starting point for nutrition planning, though your actual daily needs also depend on how active you are.

The analyzer itself needs about a minute. Allow a little extra time to enter your height, age and sex, take off your shoes and socks, and stand for a few minutes before testing, so the whole visit is brief.

Our InBody 770 is at our Edina clinic, 4820 W 77th Street, Suite 150. People come to us from Edina, Bloomington, Richfield, Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, Hopkins, St. Louis Park and southwest Minneapolis. Call 952-213-6386 with any questions before you book.