What the numbers mean

On this page: BMD · BMC · Body fat % · Lean / fat-free · VAT · Left and right · Trunk / limb · ALMI · A/G

These are the terms that show up on a Tune Me body-composition visit at Body Guitar Clinic — the same list the public FAQ has used, written so a person who is not a radiologist can follow them.

We do not publish cutoffs, T-score rules, or scare-multipliers here. The useful part is still what now with your own doctor. Dr Wheeler’s clinic reads the scores together; a single percentage is not the visit.

BMD — bone mineral density

How tightly mineral is packed in the bone the scanner can see. This is the usual “how dense is the bone” number.

A whole-body composition scan includes bone mineral. A dedicated lumbar plus dual-femur study — the $100 bone-density visit — looks at the skeletal sites most often used when bone itself is the question.

BMC — bone mineral content

How much mineral is there, not only how tightly it is packed. Density and content travel together; they are not the same sentence.

We mention both because a printout often lists both. We do not treat BMC as a souvenir total.

Body fat percentage

The share of you that is fat, as a whole-body percentage.

Useful as a headline. Easy to over-trust. Two people can share a percentage and have very different middles, limbs, and visceral fat. That is why Tune Me does not stop at “body fat %.”

Lean muscle and fat-free mass

Fat-free mass is everything that is not fat — muscle, bone, organs, water.

Lean muscle / lean mass is the muscle story we actually plan around, including what shows up in the arms and legs.

They sit next to each other on a readout. We use them to see whether you have muscle to keep — especially if fat is coming down, or if frailty is the worry. We do not invent a conversion between the two.

Visceral fat (VAT)

VAT is visceral adipose tissue: fat deep in the belly, around the organs — not the pinchable layer under the skin.

A scale often misses it. A belt that still fits can hide it. The longer plan around that story — FibroScan, GLP-1s, rescans, and where we begin the hormone conversation — lives on the VAT page.

Regional fat and muscle — left and right

DEXA can split the body into regions instead of one blended percentage.

At this clinic that includes left and right arms and left and right legs. A whole-body number can hide a side that is quietly losing muscle, or an old injury that still shows up in lean mass.

That is the asymmetry door: compare the sides, then decide whether motion or training belongs in the plan.

Trunk versus limb

Fat and lean are not evenly spread. The trunk (the middle) can tell a different story than the limbs.

A scale cannot see that pattern. A composition DEXA can. We use it when the middle is changing faster than the arms and legs — or the other way around.

ALMI — appendicular lean mass

ALMI is a limb-muscle number: lean mass in the arms and legs, often compared to height.

It shows up when we care about muscle you can use — walking, standing, carrying — not only a whole-body lean percentage. It belongs with the muscular / sarcopenia conversation. We do not post a cutoff on this site.

A/G — android / gynoid

A/G is the android-to-gynoid fat ratio: fat around the middle versus fat around the hips and thighs.

Another way to talk about trunk-versus-limb. It is a pattern on the scan, not a diagnosis by itself, and not a reason to skip VAT or the left–right comparison.

What we do not put on this page

• No invented study citations
• No risk multipliers (“triples,” and the rest)
• No lab cutoffs or T-score rules for you to self-diagnose
• No InBody-versus-DEXA argument beyond what is already on DEXA

The scan is the first half of the visit. Individualized medical information — and the solutions to tune your instrument — is the second.

Standing offer: the $225 DEXA body composition package — baseline plus a 90-day re-measure. Pricing · What a DEXA includes