A DEXA scanner is essentially a total body low energy X-ray scan that looks at three different types of tissue, bone, fat and a category known as other, which we consider that lean mass, which is your, you know, muscle, water and vital organs.

It gives you a composite score based on the different aspects of the analysis that it's looking at.

It's looking at body fat, visceral fat, lean muscle mass, and it also looks at bone mineral densities.

The good news about visceral fat is it's metabolically active and you can get rid of visceral fat with the diet exercise.

We're rolling.

What's up, Jerry?

How you doing man?

Doing great pleasure.

To have you, man.

So you moved in to How long have you been in Northwest Arkansas?

Since 2017, we moved here from Washington State.

Whereabouts in Washington?

Bellevue.

Bellevue.

I don't know if I knew that we were in Spokane for a while.

Yeah, that's the other part of the state.

Other part?

Yeah, pretty different.

Different natural beauty, totally different states almost.

But you miss Bellevue at all.

I miss the beauty, the beauty and just the natural wonder of the area.

It's very congested, you know, it's, it's growing just like other places.

But I definitely miss the beauty of the nature.

Nature is just astounding.

What brought you to Arkansas initially?

So my mother moved here in 2005.

And so that was our original connection to Arkansas.

And then when I retired from the Navy in 2017, we moved here.

And this, you know, I'm an only child.

I have the only grandchild.

And so having been in the military for all those years, I felt it was a it was probably appropriate to be next to my mother at some point in my adult life.

So we moved here and that's how we got, that's how we got to Arkansas.

It's a little different than Bellevue, but Arkansas has got some natural beauty for sure.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

It's a little more spread out, not as many people, mountains aren't as tall, but it still has a lot of natural wonder.

Absolutely.

What did you do when you first got to Arkansas?

Because you only recently opened up the Dexafens.

So what are you doing here initially?

So we moved here and I used my GI Bill to go back to college and I studied exercise science at the University of Arkansas.

And then I did some graduate work at Liberty University and exercise.

And during the time I was at Liberty is when COVID hit.

And so I initially was hoping to do something in cardiac rehab as a, as a physiologist, but I couldn't get an internship during that time because everything was shut down.

And so I, I ended up changing some of my graduate work to, to deal more with athletes, you know, strength and conditioning, that sort of thing.

So I finished all of that and started working as a personal trainer here in Northwest Arkansas at various gyms.

And it wasn't until about maybe about a year ago that I considered doing something like this.

One of my personal training clients, we struck up a conversation about some Physiology and, and all things training and I'd mentioned this to him.

And so we, we, we started talking about it and I started to reconsider, maybe looking into some type of exercise testing, that sort of thing and thought, well, how much does this equipment cost?

Now I've been a few years since I checked on these things.

And first, the first piece of equipment that I considered was the DEXA scanner, obviously the most expensive piece of equipment I was considering.

And just through a Google search, I saw Dexafit and I was thinking, oh, well, I never, I haven't seen this before.

So I looked at it and looked at some of the services they were offering and foremost, where, where are these places at 'cause there wasn't anything around Arkansas.

Exactly.

So, you know, some of the closest locations were in Kansas City and Saint Louis.

And so I thought, ah, there might be an opportunity here.

So I called the company and asked them if they would consider supporting a site in Arkansas.

Of course they said yes.

And so I put in a business plan and six 7-8 months later, here we are.

And we've been open about 10 weeks and pretty good reception of the people that have come in are excited.

They, you know, there's never never been anything like this in this area.

Certainly.

So we're, we're just excited to be able to bring some of these services to Arkansas proper, you know, certainly Northwest Arkansas, but Arkansas proper, you know, you've come in and.

Yeah, man, you've been, you've been a game changer for me because prior to y'all opening, there's a a DEXA location at Baptist Hospital in Little Rock, but they're not Dexafit oriented at all.

It's just a DEXA scan.

So I would go there.

I went there throughout my entire prep, but it's like a three hour drive for me.

And then the only other option that's beyond that was I think in Oklahoma City or Missouri or somewhere, somewhere I was going.

I went there once, but that was also like 2 1/2 hour drive.

So I mean, you are 20 minutes down the road from me.

So you've got the Dexafit, you've got the resting metabolic rate, you got the 3D imaging scan, you've got the VO2 Max.

So you got it all in one spot 20 minutes down the road.

So it's been, yeah, we're going to be good friends.

My next Rep for sure.

I'll be there frequently.

You know, Dex has generally been in, let's say hospital settings, radiology departments, exercise research centers, that sort of thing, weight loss centers, so mostly in the traditional medical confines of the medical buildings or whatnot.

So what makes Dexafit a little bit unique is the accessibility to the general public to clinical grade analysis, be it bone mineral density or body composition and all the analysis that comes along with that with this particular type of technology.

And so that's where it gets a little bit exciting, you know, for bodybuilders.

You guys know about DEXA, I mean, because it's the gold standard for analysis of body composition and whatnot.

But for the layperson who maybe they've heard about it or they had, they'd heard about DEXA or they knew someone that knew about DEXA.

And, and so now what we're seeing are people trying to find out if they can get this service around here.

You know, they, maybe they follow someone on YouTube or some influencer or some podcast that may address DEXA in one form or another and folks are just going online and finding, oh, Farmington AR isn't that interesting.

There's a DEXA scatter in Farmington, AR.

So, so we're excited about that.

The lion's share of the folks who are coming in or people who are just seeking, you know, it has nothing to do with let's say our social media efforts interestingly, but more so they're just finding out about the information on their own in some way and coming in and, and we're excited about that too.

We'll, we'll take them.

Yeah.

I mean, it's, I'm just surprised that it hadn't opened up prior to you.

I guess you were the visionary that saw it.

But like there was, I mean, there's just so much demand, I would think in this part of the state.

They're not to be a location to do this.

I mean, you came at the right time.

I understand there may have been some inquiries about this type of service from some other folks in the area, but it never, it never transpired and for whatever reason, I don't know but that that was the word that was given to me when I when I tried.

To is there a DEXA at the university for like studies and stuff?

But that's not for the public at all, right?

I think they do have some type of of service.

I'm not sure exactly what their access model is, but they do have when I remember seeing it.

Oh, there's, there's a DEXA scanner, you know, back in, back in the day.

Well, I'm glad you opened up for sure, man.

And for me it's cool because like when I was going to the Baptist, you know, since they're not part of the Dexafit umbrella, like nothing's ever digitized.

It's all just a print out and it doesn't sync with an A or anything.

So like, I've got all these printouts from, you know, years, but there's nowhere, it's nowhere digital.

So like now I can have it all in one spot and I can kind of look from one prep to the next changes in body comp, which is going to be super insightful for me.

Right.

So one of the, one of the things that we offer is not only do we do the testing, but we do the on site consultation right on the spot.

So whatever testing you do, we get all that data and I pipe it up on a big screen TV and we, we look at the data and I, I explain what it says kind of what it means for you, maybe some next steps, things to consider, maybe some modifications to consider.

But what's interesting, like you were saying about the digitization is if you, for instance, since you're coming to me for your DEXA scans, I have access to every scan and I can, I can see all of your trends in all of the different aspects of your analysis on the spot.

I mean, I can, we can just go back and forth between the different types of, you know, whether it's lean muscle mass or visceral fat or you name it.

We can just look instantaneously in a visual format, which makes it a little more valuable for you conceptually, you know, to see some of these things.

And I feel like for the general population, you know, like I'm a bodybuilder, so I'm like getting into the granular details of everything all the time.

But like the general population, most of them don't even have a bathroom scale.

And if they do, it's like a pretty cheap bioelectrical impedance scale.

It's estimating their upper body based off their lower body.

So it's not really giving them accurate feedback more often than not, but like seeing it visually where you can, you know, partition, what body region is holding the most fats, what's your lean mass doing over time, What's your bone density doing over time?

Like I feel like people that aren't even in the bodybuilding space, but just trying to be healthy and live a vibrant life like that makes it tangible for them.

Right.

You know, a lot of the the aspects of the analysis that we offer are aspects that people have never had access to.

You know, it's only through clinical grade testing can you see some of these types of attributes about your body.

And, and people are excited even when the numbers don't look good, even when they, you know, they see the numbers and they know full well they expected something like that.

But even when they see them, they get excited mostly because there's clarity, there's, there's no more guesswork.

It allows them to establish a true foundation simply because the analysis is accurate.

And it's it's looking at aspects of their Physiology, their morphology, if you will, that they've never been able to see before.

Like you said, you know, when's the last time someone knew what their right left lean muscle symmetry look like for their arms?

I mean, obviously there are people who definitely want to know these things, bodybuilders and this, that and the other, But most people who have never seen these types of numbers or analysis, they get excited even when the numbers aren't good.

Yeah, well, I mean, it's it's empowering because it gives them like if you get a goal as to where you want to get, you have to really know where you're starting from.

And that's like an old cliche that we all have heard and know to be true.

But it's like people are totally shooting in the dark because they have no idea what they're resting metabolic ray.

They have no idea how much lean tissue they're carrying on the frame.

They have no idea what their maintenance caloric intake is based off their activity.

So they're just totally shooting in the dark.

Whereas this makes it all very material for them.

You've got my DEXA pulled up.

Let's just kind of go through.

Can you also pull up like not right now, but like can you also have access to like the 3D imaging scan and all that on there?

Not on, not on this interface.

That's in a different interface, different app.

Actually, that's on your app.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think you have your app.

It's on your app.

We can pull that up too, but.

Totally.

Look at that.

Let's just dive into the DEXA and for people that are not familiar with DEXA scans, like just use this as an opportunity to kind of enlighten them as to what what all this information provides and kind of what actual feedback they can take as a result of having this information.

Sure.

So the a DEXA scanner is essentially a total body low energy X-ray scan that looks at three different types of tissue.

It looks at bone, fat and a category known as other, which we consider that lean mass, which is your lean, your, you know, muscle, water and vital organs.

Hair and everything, pretty much.

It's not it really.

Doesn't pick up the hair.

It doesn't really.

I don't think that it does that.

So if I.

Grow my hair.

I'm not going to have more muscle.

No, I don't think that's true.

I don't think that's true.

I think it's, I don't, I don't think it does that.

But that's what Dex is looking at.

So under the analysis, it gives you a composite score based on the different aspects of the analysis that it's looking at.

It's looking at body fat, visceral fat, lean muscle mass, and it also looks at bone mineral density.

So based on your age and gender and what these numbers look like, it's essentially grading you on that as a total composite score.

So in your case, you did, you did well.

Each time you come in, you've had a or a plus.

And this one was taken June of this year.

June of this year was when you when you came in.

So I'm in full blown building phase right now, not batting down for a show or anything.

So 14 1/2 body fat in the build is pretty much where I'm trying to be.

So that's.

Right.

So you know your body fat was 14.5%, you had basically 26 lbs of body fat total total.

So you know that that number alone, it's actually telling you the amount, total amount of fat, not just as a percentage, but as weight, like how many pounds.

So that's a number that can be tracked.

You know, as you know, your fat percentage changes can change a lot of different reasons.

You know, maybe you have more muscle mass, that's that sort of thing.

But you can actually track the fat as well as far as the numbers.

Which is in and of itself key for people that are just only looking at the total weight on the scale.

It's like what you know, you need to kind of know what that composition is, not just weight.

That's where that that's where it becomes more valuable for an individual.

But you know, also, you know, in your case, you know, we looked at visceral fat, which is the fat that's inside your body cavity.

You know, it's what's considered the bad type of fat.

You know it, it can.

Run around the organs.

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's on the other side of your abdominal wall.

It's inside your body cavity.

You know, that type of fat in a lot of ways kind of acts like its own organ.

It can release hormones.

It can release chemical messengers that cause inflammation systemically or locally.

You know, it's, it's just not a type of fat that's beneficial to you over the long haul.

The good news about visceral fat is it's metabolically active and you can get rid of visceral fat, you know, with, with the diet and exercise and that sort of thing, low stress, low cortisol, that sort of thing.

How how does measuring visceral fat via DEXA compared to via MRI imaging?

I actually don't know.

I'm not familiar with the MRI modality per SE, but I.

Haven't done that test yet but I've got a colleague that does MRI for visceral fat so I want to kind of do both and see.

But it's more expensive.

Cost prohibitive for sure.

Absolutely.

And I, I don't know of any radiology department that would let someone come in.

I want to see what my visceral fat level is.

Not today we have too many other high, high, you know, high priority patients ahead of the line.

But but what, what makes the DEXA interesting is it's just accessible.

It's it's, it's, it's a cheap test overall compared to something like an MRI, but it definitely looks at the visceral fat also, which is a something that separates DEXA from a lot of other analysis.

So I'm in the fair category on the fair.

Fair.

I think, you know, if we look back in time, you've had better, you know, better results kind.

Of depends on whether or not I'm in a prep or not, probably.

Yeah, true, true.

But you know, that's certainly visceral fat is something that you don't want to have a lot of you.

You want that to be very low.

Yeah, makes total sense.

And then we also have the lean mass analysis where we we can see compositionally what percent of your body is lean mass, but we are, we can also take a look at how many pounds of lean mass you have.

So interestingly, you know, barring any surgery where your vital organs are removed, you know that changes to this number are essentially muscle and water, you know, so that's a number you can track over time, you know, so the if you want to see if you're actually putting on muscle, I can track that.

For sure, and you do it.

You can do it by body part region too, which is nice.

That's right.

You know, we can look at different various regions of the body, the trunk, the arms, the legs.

Do I have more lean mass in my arms than Greg?

I have to look.

I don't know about that.

He's just off a show.

I don't know.

We'll see about that.

But more importantly, you know, with the lean mass analysis, now we can consider symmetry, right, left symmetry, which is important for a lot of reasons.

Obviously there's the aesthetic aspect, but more importantly just biomechanical movement and injury prevention, things like that.

You want to be symmetrical in your movements.

Certainly.

You know, an interesting thing that DEXA does is it does this analysis called the appendicular lean mass index.

And what this is, is essentially your lean mass in your extremities, your arms and your legs converted to kilograms divided by your height in meters squared.

And it essentially gives you a muscular index number.

And what they found is if you're if you score really high in this, you generally have a better lifespan and less chronic disease burden over your lifespan.

This is kind of like a much better version of ABMI.

Test.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Because I'm always obese in BMI calculation.

And this is, you know, we're only dealing with lean tissue.

So this would be muscle and water in the extremities and, and it only makes sense.

I mean, just just looking at it at the 30,000 foot level, if someone has a lot of muscle in their legs, they typically have pretty good mobility or if they have a lot of muscle in their arm, they can carry things.

They generally wouldn't be limited in their movement patterns unless they had some sort of pain or something like that.

But it's an excellent analysis to look to see how how much muscle you have on your frame for your height.

Well, what we know is we want that number to be high because as we age, we're going to lose that anyway.

So we want you to be what I want to call the top of the mountain, the top of the mountain so that as you age, you age at a from a high number so that you're much further away from, you know, loss of muscle, you know, sarcopenia or any type of frailty issues later in life, certainly in your senior years.

So if you can keep this number high, that's more indicative of a a much more vibrant health span.

Absolutely.

Yeah, It'd be interesting to get this data as I get older and older, for sure.

Like, I don't know when I'll retire from competing if I retire.

But like, like I think of my grandparents, for instance, who are just not using their muscles and therefore there's significant atrophy taking place.

And when you start going downhill, you start going downhill quick.

So to be able to have this to kind of like measure against year to year as you age would be super helpful.

You know, DEXA also looks at bone mineral density.

It's one of the main reasons it was developed.

And we can actually do a comparison to your peer group, you know, your sex, your age group and how how you shake down compared to other folks bone mineral density in your class.

So it's and I get.

I give this number.

The technical way to look at this is standard deviations above the mean For you know if you look at a bell curve, the top of the bell curve would be 0.

To the right of the bell curve would be a positive number, which is where you want to be in comparison on this analysis.

And you were .4 standard deviations.

So you were on your way down the bell curve on the on the right side of the bell curve, which is the good side.

You know, if you were negative .4 that's not as good.

That means that your bone mineral density would be much less than than.

The and on the the DEXA like peer group analysis that's based off of everybody that uses DEXA that's ever.

Been on the machine right in the world, yeah, so.

There's probably even a little bit of a healthy user bias in that, I would think, because more often than not people that are using Dexas are like interested in like probably healthy to some extent or at least trying to be relative to the general standard American diet population.

Well, the other, the other, the other flip, flip side of that would be, you know, if someone's getting DEXA for bone mineral density, maybe it's because they're at risk or they have symptoms or they're exhibiting symptoms of, you know, osteopenia or osteoporosis, some type of bone pathology.

So that might balance out.

I'm not exactly sure sure for sure how that how that pans out, but what we do know is the the population that you're being compared against is large enough to make an assessment for sure without a doubt.

Very cool, I like any other worthwhile things touching on as far as the dex is concerned.

It also tells you how much your bones weigh.

Which is pretty crazy.

It's 6.3 lbs.

Yeah.

You know, I always ask folks before the number comes up, hey, how much, how much do you think your bones weigh?

And they always say 30 pounds, 40 lbs.

And then when I show them the number, they're, you know, it's astounding.

It's astounding.

It's amazing what that skeleton can do.

What?

Blows my mind is the people that are carrying way too much weight, like they're still carrying all that weight on the same skeletal frame that a person of healthy weight is carrying.

It's like that's asking so much more of that skeletal structure than a healthy individual.

It's like there's no such thing as, oh, they're just big bone.

It's like, no, they're just obese and they're putting all that taxation on their bones.

Certainly on the joints, yeah, the joints, you know, knees and ankles and hips, certainly for that.

But it is an interesting thing about DEXA that I mean, nobody knows what their bones weigh.

And so that's just a just a fun way of looking at the analysis.

What's the highest number you've seen there for the weight of bones?

Oh, I've, I've had some tall gentlemen that interestingly had very good bone mineral density.

I think it was, I don't know, 8.4.

It's like, still single digits though nothing.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, I actually don't know what the highest is, but that, yeah, 88's a lot.

Yeah, 8's a lot.

You know that's you know, that's 20% more than you.

It is crazy because I think about like the the weights like I'm pulling with a deadlifter, A squat, like I'm loading my skeletal structure with 400 plus pounds and the bones that are moving that are structure like that's less than 10 lbs That's crazy.

Yeah, yeah, You know, the the bones allow a place for muscle attachment, you know, and so, you know, the torque that you put on bones has a lot to do with the health of the bone.

You know, that's why weightlifting is a is really good for your bones.

You know, it gives you that that essential strain on the bone that is necessary for growth.

But yeah, it's amazing that the skeleton, it's very hollow actually, you know, it's in in a lot of ways very porous.

Obviously, you know, because we know what a what in your case, 6.3 lbs.

We know what a 6 LB dumbbell weighs.

Not much at all.

So imagine you know, you've got your skeleton over one shoulder and you got your.

It's amazing how how wide it actually is in comparison to its functionality.

That's wow.

Wow, What else we got as far as Dex?

Anything else?

No, I think, I think that's it, you know, it's, it's the main areas are for body composition.

It's super non invasive scan, you know it.

Takes takes anywhere from 4:00

to 7:00 minutes based on how large you are as far as your your total mass.

You know, the scan goes faster if you're smaller, but about anywhere from 4:00 to 7:00 minutes, maybe 8 minutes tops.

And it's very quick, like laying down on a tanning bed, except I've got a little cushion there instead of hard plastic.

It's very quick, very quick.

And there's it's very easy, very.

Easy.

Is there like when people are doing DEXA scans like on a regular basis?

Is there a length of time to optimally try and have a scan between?

Like how much time ideally between scans to get measurable changes?

Well, depending on what you're trying to look at, are you looking at body fat?

Are you looking at lean mass?

You know, because.

Like when lean, like when I'm in a prep, if I'm, you know, losing body fat at a pretty aggressive rate, like that all shows for sure.

But if I'm in a building phase, naturally it takes so much time to build muscle.

Like if I'm getting a scan every few months, I could probably would make sense to have a longer time interval between.

Yeah.

You know, depending on how closely you want to try to monitor the results and how, how closely you want to see the trend lines and to, to, to determine whether or not your training type, you know, your what type of training you're doing is giving you the effect.

You know that a lot of that has to do with the periodicity of the exam.

You know, let's say you're doing a six month work up for a show.

I mean, you know, you do your baseline probably every couple of months come in and just have a sense of your trend line.

And you know, 'cause you get excited when the, when you see the trend lines, you get excited.

And so I always recommend that that that's a good reason to, to be scanned.

It's just to see the trend lines, but I think about every couple of months or so.

And in in your case, if you were doing a show prep, that would be totally fine.

You know, for the general, a person who just comes in because they want to know a DEXA and their numbers look relatively good, I don't know, maybe every year would be sufficient.

You know, if their visceral fats really high, I'd like to see them come in a little sooner than that just to see if what they're doing as their intervention is working.

You know, I don't want them to wait a year and then and then say, hey, whatever you were doing that that didn't work.

I'd rather not have to wait that long.

I'd rather be able to see some improvements.

It's like if you're manipulating a lot of things like trying to change your diet, change your training, like 6 months minimum makes sense.

And then like for me and a prep, I'd probably do it and I'd probably do it like every month because.

Well, yeah, I mean, obviously if, if, if you have something close by and it's accessible and affordable, you know, more frequently is is it makes it valuable certainly for trend line analysis and to really dial things in to say, hey, you know, this is exactly where I'm at with everything.

So that's probably what I'd recommend.

Do you have my RMR or is that on a separate app as well?

I do actually.

I do have your RMR.

Because we did that and that that test was interesting because basically I just sat in the chair for 15 minutes breathing casually and it was like talk, talk about RMR.

So what is that calculating?

So the resting metabolic rate is a test.

It's a resting test.

Obviously.

I've got you in a Chase lounge chair.

I've got you hooked into a gas analysis machine, the metabolic cart, and I've got you.

Breathing through a tube takes about, like you said, usually between 15 and 20 minutes.

And what it's doing, it's taking a sampling of your breathing, your gases that you're exhaling, you know, carbon dioxide and oxygen, and essentially extrapolating what your metabolic rate is from that.

The resting metabolic rate is the rate where you're awake, alert, and not moving.

So it'll not the same as basal metabolic rate.

That'd be like if you're in a coma.

Basal would be your sleeping basically.

Yeah, life sustaining metabolic activity.

And a lot of like a lot of people.

Which is usually less than.

Right.

Yeah.

And they make the the negative assumption like they'll get like a, they'll plug in their height and weight and age into like a generic macro calculator online.

It'll calculate their estimated BMR and then it'll say 1200 calories or something for females as an example.

And they'll just assume that's what they should be consuming on a daily basis if their goal is to lose weight.

But like you said, that's not accounting for any expenditure throughout the day, which is not a healthy caloric intake.

Right.

So you know, the mathematical calculations, it's a starting point, certainly, but where, where the test comes into play is I'm actually directly measuring metabolic activity right then, right, as far as what your conditioning level is, what's your, what's your, your, your level of activity actually is right now.

And so that becomes very accurate.

And so, you know, there's a lot of reasons to have a resting metabolic rate number.

Certainly if someone's on a, a weight loss journey and they want to dial in, you know, they really want to have an, the essence of what kind of caloric intake is required, that would be a reason to have it.

Or let's say you're an athlete and you definitely want your metabolic rate high because that's, that's more indicative of an increase in conditioning, right?

You want, you want your metabolic rate to be high because that's, that's your idle speed.

You want your idle speed to be much higher, you know, So if that's going up, that's maybe a, a clue that maybe your muscle mass is going up because that's where most of your calories are being burned is in the muscle or you're the, the metabolic machinery inside the muscle.

Let's say it's the same size, but the machinery, the metabolic machinery inside the muscle is much more robust, much more active, which we like that.

That could be indicative of a higher resting metabolic rate, but we definitely want the number to to not be going down.

We definitely don't want that so.

And the higher the the metabolic rate, the more foods you can consume quote UN quote get away with so.

Absolutely.

So a lot.

There's a lot of ways to use a resting metabolic rate.

You know, you can some folks may eat may use that that resting rate as the calorie intake level for the day and then they allow their physical activity to create a deficit.

That's some people do that.

The other thing you can do is you can take your resting rate and then you can add in any of your physical activity.

You know your sessions, if you have a, a wearable, you know you can add those caloric contributions to the resting rate and that gives you a sense of what your daily requirement might be.

But it it definitely takes a lot of the guesswork out of the caloric burn that makes up most of your caloric burn in the day.

The more sedentary you are, the more the resting metabolic rate matches your total, but the more active you are certainly your your physical activity that takes away some of that so.

So what?

What were my results here?

I've been with some.

We did this test.

So this was the 1836 resting metabolic rates.

Pretty much if I'm just chilling on the computer all day working on emails.

Yeah, yeah, You know, certainly if you know, you're sitting around working on astrophysics or some high level intellectual activity, you know, you do burn a little more sugar in the brain.

But in in the in.

In essence, your test was basically where it predicted mathematically, also based on equation.

And I expected, you know, you and I are about the same height.

You've got more muscle than I do, so I would expect your resting metabolic rate to be higher than mine.

And that's true certainly with the number that we see there, the 1830, six, 1836 calories per day.

And when I'm doing a calculation online, it's pretty close to then.

And I know from years of track and that my true maintenance intake based off of my activity levels is typically around 3000 calories.

So I'm on average burning an additional 1200 calories just from the day-to-day activity to maintain weight if that's my resting metabolic rate.

Yeah.

But as I was saying, you know, it just the resting metabolic rate allows you to have a little more clarity in your idle speed, if you will.

And you know, that's a number that most people would never normally get that measured directly.

So that's where we come in as we we offer that analysis.

Totally.

Now for this one we were sitting in a lounge chair taking it easy, listening to some chill music.

But when I went in the other day for a VO2 Max, that was not the case.

I wasn't just taking it easy on that one.

No that you don't have that on your screen though, right I.

Do have, I do have your VO2, but I don't have your metabolic profile that we that we talked about earlier.

Yeah, pull up that you get here.

I've got, yeah, we, we had you at 55 milliliters per kilogram per minute.

And for context, I don't do any cardiovascular training.

I mean, I just started kind of post this test, so I expect that to be better the next time we test.

But what is this measuring exactly?

What can we glean from this?

How do people implement it in their training?

Like just give us the rundown on VO2.

So VO2 Max is a maximal cardio respiratory fitness test.

We do it on the treadmill I've got you hooked up to with a mask on, and we're analyzing your exhalations into this gas analyzer.

What the VO2 Max test does is it measures your body's ability to use oxygen to make energy essentially, right.

So for instance, we know how much oxygen's in the air.

We, the machine can figure that out, but it also analyzes how much oxygen you're breathing out, right?

Which is much less than what's in the air, cause your body used some of that.

And So what we're measuring is the maximum difference between what's in the air and what you exhale, right?

And so that's what you've consumed metabolically.

And so we're measuring that in your case, and it's based on your weight.

And we, we, we kind of make it a relative number based on your weight and it's milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute.

So when we do the test, it's actually sampling about every 15 seconds.

So you did pretty good.

That's a pretty good number.

That's a good number, and it was something like I was in the upper 94th percentile of people in my age group and sex or something like that.

You have your you have your print out that we looked at on the front page.

It actually categorized your fitness level.

What does it say?

Superior.

Of course, of course.

No, that's really good.

Stick that on the fridge, yeah?

And again, you know that VO2 number, just like with the muscle mass number, we want the VO2 number to be high.

Yeah.

It's considered a vital sign and a lot of circles, certainly in cardiology, you know, it's been talked about as vital signs.

We know that if you have a high VO2, you typically live longer.

That's true.

I mean, I don't think that's in question.

You can actually raise your VO2 through training.

Obviously, you know, different types of training modalities.

You lose VO2 over time as you age, just like we lose everything else.

We lose our eyesight, we lose our hearing, we lose our muscles, we lose coordination, we lose cardio respiratory capacity.

But in the cardio respiratory capacity area, that has a lot to do with your ability to negotiate the rigors of life, You know, do physical activities, you know, you know, work out or go for a walk or you, you name the activity that requires oxygen, which everything does.

Those are things that over time become much more limited for you.

And so we want to be able to maintain as much vitality with our movements and with our activities.

So VO2 is something that we can measure, I can categorize your fitness level and it's something that we can track over time.

You know, if you get another test, you know, let's say you you decide to take up running as part of your part of your training block, you know, I expect that to actually be higher.

And the way you conducted the test is that we established A baseline like jog, then like fast walk, then jog, and then once we established our speed, I think it was like 6 miles an hour for me, we just started increasing the grade every minute, I believe.

Right.

So we, we started you out just as a, as a slow walk and over the course of about 5 or 6 minutes, I slowly got you up to your testing speed, which would be your testing speed.

And in, in your case it was 6 mph on the treadmill.

And then after that, every minute I increase the treadmill grade by 1%.

And So what we're doing is we're increasing the workload gradually and we're, we're essentially maxing out your, your oxygen, yeah, oxygen use capacity and, and forcing you to transition between different energy systems in the, in the muscle to the point where you're basically transitioning away from burning fat, which is the substrate that's typically used at low intensities.

And you start and I artificially force you to transition to using more carbohydrates later in the in the protocol until the point where you tap out.

And so for you, I think you we got you up to what 10% grade?

It was pretty, I think we were like at 12.

12%.

Grade yeah, we went up there, man.

OK, I'll have to remember that.

I'll have to go back and look.

Well, let's see.

Yeah.

So that's probably true.

Because I've got that's.

Pretty steep actually.

12% is quite.

Quite A and This is why a lot of people train like heart rate style training.

Like they'll try and pick a zone and stay in that zone depending on what their goals are.

Which is something I've never done previous.

Like I've never I don't do a ton of cardio but like when I'm in a fat loss phase.

Like I I've never paid 2 minds to what my heart rate is or trained based off the zone heart rate calculation.

Right.

Think of heart rate as an indicator of workload, you know, so it's directly proportional to your workload, you know, so the higher your heart rate, the more work you're doing, the more taxing it is on your body, if you will.

So what was interesting in your case is because of your ketogenic diet.

I was interested to see to.

What?

Let's pull that.

So let me, if you'll like, pull your screen down.

Yeah, let me pull it out.

And then, yeah, there you go.

I don't know why mine's not maximized, though.

There we go.

And you can see that on your own chip.

I can actually.

Plug that into the.

Thing OK, so where are you getting the full picture there?

So before we dive into mine, which is mine right here, let's look at a typical scan.

And you sent me a few.

This is just the first one, but even the other ones you send this.

Is textbook.

This is pretty much.

Textbook and this this individual was looks like 51 years old male, but you sent me some that were closer in age to me and it's pretty similar layout exactly.

They all, they all kind of look the same.

Walk us through what we're seeing here.

So what we see here is an effective fat burn chart where each column is one minute of the protocol and that black area is the caloric contribution of fat and the brown or the tan is the caloric contribution of carbohydrates or sugar.

And So what we see is over the course of this protocol, as the workload goes up, your fat burning machinery in the cell, you know, in the mitochondria is, is being able to keep up with a lot of the workload.

You still have a little bit of sugar burn underneath that which is which you see that a lot.

But notice as the workload starts to go up, your body starts to rely less and less on fat and more and more on carbohydrate.

You know, it does that for a lot of different reasons.

We know that you can get energy from carbohydrate much more faster and more efficiently over a short period of time than you can fat.

And so your body generally wants to transition to that.

You know the other thing too to look at at this is you have increases in adrenaline, right?

And if something gets harder and more stressful, you get more adrenaline into the bloodstream.

And that actually can cause the breakdown of sugar more quickly in the liver.

And so you get a little more sugar out there available to you and also you have what's known as muscle type transition, muscle fiber type transition.

Type 1 type.

Two, type 1 is type 1 is kind of your aerobic fat burning style muscle tissue.

And then the type 2 is more of the carbohydrate loving or fast twitch muscle.

And so as the core, as you increase in intensity, you get that transition away from type 1 and more type 2.

So what you see is, is a push towards carbohydrate metabolism.

And then eventually that just kind of takes over because your body just says, you know what, I just can't do the fat anymore.

We're just going to do carbohydrate because that's how we're that's that's the road you want to go down.

We're going to use carbohydrates going out.

So everyone.

You're at peak past them and your your liver and your muscles are dumping, all stored in glycogen and that's just what's getting used.

Yeah, that's whatever is in the muscle.

You know, you certainly already have stuff in the muscle and then what's in the bloodstream and then what gets kicked out through the in the from the liver.

But all roads lead to a very tall brown column.

That's I get everybody there and and it's just interesting to see that that's where it goes.

But in your, in your guys's.

Case Clover to mine.

I was.

It was very fascinating.

So this is what being keto for a decade plus results in.

I actually didn't expect it to look like that.

I was fascinated to see that from your heart rate from 85 beats per minute, to really be close to 120 beats per minute, you were almost using 0 sugar.

I was.

I couldn't believe that.

And honestly, like it didn't start carbohydrate didn't exceed fat until I was pretty much like one 61167 right as a heart rate.

So I which is a high heart rate.

That's a high heart.

That's like I had to go on trail runs and that's a pretty good clip on a trail run.

So like it didn't, I mean, when I'm typically just trained, let's I'm all out sprinting.

I mean, I'm predominantly fat metabolism which is pretty cool.

Yeah, definitely.

That's the case here.

I mean the predominance of fat in this profile is profound.

It's interesting, you know, you're the crossover point for you is like what you said, the crossover point being the point where the caloric contribution of fat and carbohydrates is about the same.

It was in the 16161 is kind of where the average heart rate was at that at that point.

But what's interesting about fat metabolism versus carbohydrate metabolism, we know that lactate that comes from carbohydrate metabolism, not fat metabolism.

So, you know, when you're burning a lot of sugar, very quickly you can accumulate the lactate and that's where things start to unravel.

And this is literally why I never get sore.

Like I train every single day.

I never get sore especially with like weight training.

I'm I'm typically not going super high on my heart rate, but I'm never having this lactate threshold being met so I don't ever get that lactate burn.

Mm hmm, which is interesting.

But it's it, yeah, I was.

It's very fascinating to see the predominance of of fat metabolism during the course of this protocol.

I mean, 2, I don't know, 2/3, almost 3/4 of your protocol was fat.

I'd never seen that.

I would love to have gotten this test like the first year I started doing keto and see how it compares to now having done it for over a decade because I was.

I would assume that the deeper levels of adaptation I'm in that fat predominant metabolism source of energy is just elongated.

But I'll have to do this again to see.

But what when I think of this from an efficacious standpoint for athletes, like if you're, if you're deeply fat adapted, then you're able to tap into a much larger fuel reserve because you've got much more stored fat than you can store in glucose in your liver and muscles.

So if you're not having to rely on what is stored in glucose for much longer than your peer group or competitors, then you've got a much longer, larger lasting reserve of fuel.

So like this I think is very efficacious for endurance athletes as well because most like endurance sports like unless you're going all out sprinting like you can be like in my case, I mean, I can be jogging at 150 heart rate for a long time and that whole time I'm predominantly using fat, you know, so.

So if you look at the difference between the energy currency that one molecule of glucose provide you versus 1 molecule of let's say palmitic acid fat, you know, palmitic acid fat can give you 2 1/2 times as much ATP energy just in one molecule.

So like you said that that reserve, there's so much more energy packed into a fat molecule that you can, that we can grab onto.

If you have the machinery to do it, it's there.

If you have the factories, if you have enough factories online to get yourself into that fat molecule and and do it efficiently, you haven't it's almost unlimited in a lot of ways if you if you if you have the machinery to do it.

Yeah.

So that's kind of what we see here is I actually you it was a good test.

And that was I was impressed.

Even Greg was impressed.

Yeah, it was cool, man.

Greg's profile looked very similar to mine.

I mean, we both had that elongated fat metabolism.

He had a different, I think he had a different protocol and I can't remember if you guys did the exact same protocol.

I think his was like fast walking and then a slight jog and mine was a little slow jog to more of a faster jog or something.

But what was interesting is the the essence of your profile were very similar.

That was, we definitely garnish that from the analysis is that your ketogenic diet is, is producing a, a, a particular type of profile at least between you 2 guys.

You know, if we were to analyze 25 of you, you know, I've had a conga line of VO2 Max test for ketogenic athletes.

I 'cause I don't have a lot of you 2 are the only ones I've tested that were ketogenic.

So I don't have a lot of experience with that.

That's why it was fascinating to see how different the profile was compared to even runners.

Even runners.

Because a runner, I mean, I don't know what this individual's activity levels are like, but I mean, this is textbook you say, right?

Like this is pretty much.

What?

Yeah, You, you see the the rising fat and then it just really tapers off fairly quickly, usually in, you know, anywhere from a heart rate to

1:45 to 1:50.

And a lot of people you know, based on conditioning level, but moving forward after that, there's no fat, almost none.

But you guys carried it out much further and it was much more robust along the way.

So those columns are much higher in their caloric contribution across the most of the protocol, which is fascinating.

Yeah, no, it's super interesting, man.

It definitely kind of piqued my interest in just diving deeper into heart rate training, VO2 Max specifically.

So I'm I'm much more cognizant of it now.

I'll I'll start implementing it.

More, you know, and, and just as an aside, you know, for bodybuilders who are viewing and, and watching this, if you're more aerobically fit, you're more quickly able to recover between sets.

Totally.

I don't think anybody would deny that.

And just in general, your ability to negotiate hard training sessions, it only helps if you can, if you have all this extra energy pumping in there.

So, you know, I certainly recommend that folks don't overlook the aerobic side of their training.

Yeah, I've never overlooked it, but in like the bodybuilding, powerlifting space especially, there's like no attention paid towards it whatsoever.

And you think about it like if you're trying to maximize hypertrophy and strength for like squat, for instance.

But if you're gassed after a few reps of squat, then you're leaving muscle building potential on table because you could potentially do more reps, train more frequently if you are in better cardiovascular shape.

So yeah, you can't really take it for granted.

Yeah.

I think, you know, certainly have a little more flexibility with changing, changing your training volume.

You know, you'd be able to negotiate that, but certainly in a lot of ways, you know, with the, the power lifters, that's a different energy system also.

We haven't talked about that one, but you know, that's a, that's a different type of training certainly in a different type of bioenergetic aspect of weightlifting certainly.

Yeah, I just want to be harder to kill, man, all over.

I want to be just lethal from a strength standpoint, A cardiovascular conditioning standpoint, and just healthy.

Like, I feel like as human beings, we should be able to, you know, have some basic benchmarks like be able to pull up our own body weight and be able to just, on a whim, run a mile without fail.

Like just little things like that that we should all be capable of doing.

So the services we provide in Dexafit, all services, you know, if you combine all the services that we have, the analysis wants you to be good at everything.

Just like you said, it wants you to be a hybrid, it wants you to be lean, it wants you to be muscular, it wants you to have really good bones, no visceral fat.

It wants you to be able to run and it wants you to have a high metabolic rate.

I mean, that's, so the analysis is, is grading you against what it sees as the perfect hybrid, if you will.

And so that's what you're up against when when you do these tests, is it it's, it's grading you against where you should probably be for your age to ensure that you have the longevity and the lifespan that you'd like to have.

What there was 1?

I think it may have been on your app for my dex is like biological age.

Is that basically measuring against peer group at a given age?

Like what?

What the?

Consensus is there, so it's taken into account the questionnaire that you fill out before you come in your pretest questionnaire.

It takes into account, you know, are you a smoker?

Are you this?

Are you that?

But then it also more importantly takes into account any testing that you do.

You know, it feeds all that information into that calculation and gives you a biological age, which is different than your chronological age, which is your calendar age.

Your biological age takes into consideration what you appear to be by analysis.

I think it said mine is 22 years old or something.

Was that right?

I couldn't remember.

How low it was Prime man let.

Me, let me see, Let me see what it was.

I think it was.

2424 Now I will say that's not the best chronological age, biological age difference I've seen.

I've seen 18 years.

First somebody that was how old?

I want to say they were in their upper 50s.

Wow, that's crazy 50s that's.

Impressive, which is pretty good.

I've had some young early 20 or mid 20 runners and they were 11, you know?

You get a lot of people where their biological age is much older than their chronic I've had.

I've had a few.

They were aghast by it.

You know, I had an older gentleman who was 13 years biologically older than his actual age.

So we talked about it and I explained what was basically creating that that disparity.

But that would be a good motivating factor though for sure.

Well, I, I would hope so.

I would hope so You it's basically an 8.

It's, it's a clock.

Yeah.

It's, it's saying this is kind of where you seem to be based on analysis.

And so physiologically, all the aspects, all the attributes that we look at in a composite way, you know, how old are you essentially, which is, I think that's, I actually like that part of the analysis, my analysis.

Is tangible for people.

I'm a little younger than my age, which I like that too, and I want to keep once.

Once you know that you want to keep that, it's an interesting thing I when you first get the app and you download the app and you pull up your DEXA scan for the first time, or your your biological age, the default number that comes up in the software is 88, but you have to, you know, it ought to you refresh.

It did you see that?

Yeah, I saw that.

I'm like, man, I'm going backwards.

I.

Had I had a lady, I had a lady almost fall out.

She and she couldn't believe it, but I said Oh no, just pull, refresh the app.

And she was so relieved to know that she was.

Not 88.

25 or whatever.

It was.

So that was an interesting and I always forget to tell people that don't look at that 88, it's not real.

Yeah, you got to refresh him.

Well, you're, you're doing us a solid man.

You're not only are you a platinum sponsor for our competition in September, but you're hosting a super generous 2 day open house for anybody coming in and involved with the show.

What at all like competitors, which is a great time to get a DEXA scan, but like attendees, registrants, volunteer, anybody involved, you're hooking them up with half price on DEXA and a full free 3D imaging scan, which is, we didn't even talk about that, but that's super cool.

You stand on a platform and this camera does a 360 around you and it's all, you know, facial recognition.

So anytime you test there going forward, it does like heat mapping to show where you've gained, where you've lost estimates, visceral fat, body fat, lean tissue, all that stuff.

And it's pretty.

I mean, it looks just like it's kind of trippy.

So my, my goal was to provide a way for bodybuilders in their peak condition to see most accurately where their composition truly is at their best.

I think, I think you guys should know that, you know, I, I just feel like that's a number you should know as a competitor.

And a lot of the competitors are kind of delusional.

They think they're 6% body fat, where is in reality they may actually be like 12% body fat.

You know, I mean getting a DEXA scan when you're that lean is like the the real telltale sign.

Right.

So, so you get the DEXA scan and you get the body comp analysis.

And then if you marry that up with a 3D scan, now you get the external photographic side of it that does an estimation of all of your circumferences and your 3 dimensional volume, right?

So it's a 3 dimensional analysis, whereas DEX is A2 dimensional analysis.

But you know, putting those two together, it gives you a wealth of information.

And like you said, if you have changes in your, in your circumferences over time, you can compare scan to scan.

And then it generates what's known as a heat map, like you were saying, where it's color-coded and it tells you where you've lost and where you've gained all on one image simultaneously.

So it's, it's giving you a, a snapshot of all the changes that have happened over the course of, let's say 30 days or 60 days or whatever scan periodicity you want to look at.

And so that gets exciting because what's more motivating than to know, oh, I lost inches off my waist.

Oh, my shoulders got 3mm larger or you name it.

It's very accurate.

So I I certainly would want them to have that 3D scan just as a a way of seeing their body in a different way, certainly with the, you know, looking at the morphology, but then with the DEXA looking at the actual makeup.

Yeah, you know, your your compositional makeup.

I think the two of those together, it's that's the winning combination for bodybuilders certainly.

Yeah, I'm, I'm super excited to have you here close and local, man.

Like truly when I do my next prep, like I'll be there on a monthly basis documenting because I'd document everything anyways.

But be able to have it all digitally with the same equipment every time where I can control all the environmental factors and be consistent is going to be game changer.

The the other thing to consider too is because of the accuracy of the DEXA, if you come in over the course of even during your training block or your prep block, whatever, or certainly right before your show, you can truly evaluate objectively how effective your training was.

Now, obviously people are effective at losing body fat and, and doing wonders to their body over the course of a training block, but to to if you wanted to evaluate maybe a different modification that you've made and how effective was that in a certain amount of time?

You know, did that timeline work out the way you thought it was going to?

So there's a lot of variables that an individual who does shows or fitness prep or whatever, they can use that information in a lot of different ways to objectively evaluate what they've done and just say, oh, OK, you know, that that really worked well for me or wow, I didn't expect that, that that's great.

Or wow, my.

You know, my shoulders or my calves or you name it, You know, you can look at that stuff objectively, certainly when you're at your peak condition and to evaluate your training.

And if you marry that up with, you know, taking somewhat consistent progress photos, you've got that objective date as well, which we're pretty good about doing here.

And then you're also tracking your intake.

So, you know, OK, what if my, if I'm looking at my DEXA scan, that's it and I've lost body fat or I've gained body fat totally independent of total scale weight.

What's the composition changes looking like?

But then you can like look at that, transpose it over.

What's my intake been like?

Am I eating too many calories?

Not enough calories, more protein, less protein, more carbohydrates.

It's like it just takes the guesswork at things.

You can be very objective with the feedback you're getting and then make an informed decision going forward.

And my hope, my hope is that competitors will begin to integrate this type of clinical grade testing, certainly DEXA into their training into their, into their thinking as far as knowing their body following their progress or no progress.

You know, you can, you know, there's a lot of ways to look at it, but my, my hope is that now that we're available in Arkansas, that, you know, regional competitors will consider us as a place to give, give them a little more clarity, a little more understanding about the exact nature of their composition.

And certainly if you've never used DEXA as part of your analysis, I mean, you just got to come in at this point.

You just got it.

You got to come in.

I'm hooked, man.

No, I've been doing Nexus for years.

But like having it, all of the stuff you offer in one spot right in my backyard and like I'm, I'm super pleased and I'm super grateful for you and glad that we connect in the 1st place, man.

This has been nothing but positive.

No, I, I, I like all you guys coming in.

You guys are like Guinea pigs.

I like seeing all this new ketogenic stuff.

I, I, you know, I'm going to have to learn a little more about it myself.

I'm, I'm definitely perplexed by that.

So.

Yeah.

I'm happy to have all you guys come in.

Bodybuilding, runners, cyclist, enthusiast, you name it.

I mean, you guys are all all welcome and we'll talk about it.

I mean part of part of my service is we unpack it all.

Yeah.

And we tell you what the numbers say and.

I need my brother to jump on he's he's like skinny but not he doesn't lift, he doesn't eat the right food.

So I want to like get him on that.

I want to get him like full blown lab panels done too so he can just see the actual numbers and hopefully make better decisions.

We're available, we're open 100% man.

What's the website?

Nwa.dexafit.com.

nwa.dexafit.com It's all by appointment only.

You're the only person there.

When you come in, it's just me and you.

White glove service, man.

I mean, it's VIP.

Start to finish.

VIP and you're going to have a booth at the show too, so people can meet you there in person as well.

I'll be there and and combine.

See me, you know, if you haven't already seen me at the open house, just come by and chat and we'll talk all things analysis.

We'll talk all things.

I love it.

I love it.

Well, Jerry, truly a pleasure, ma'am.

You're doing a good service for people here in Northwest Arkansas, but all over.

And if we can get the state, I think Arkansas is like the second most unhealthy state.

I think Mississippi's got to speed.

West Virginia is in there too, West Virginia.

So Arkansas is that's not a good place to be a good.

I'd like for us not to be there.

Yeah, well, you're fighting the good fight and tipping that turn the other way for sure.

So keep doing it, brother.

Pleasure.

Appreciate.

Absolutely.

All right.

That's a ramp chip.