Tanita BC554 Ironman Glass InnerScan Body Composition Monitor Elite Series

The Tanita BC554 Ironman Glass InnerScan Body Composition Monitor Elite Series is one of the most comprehensive body monitors on the market today that's designed for home use. Using advanced Bioelectric Impedance Analysis (BIA) technology that was previously available only to medical professionals, health clubs and professional athletes, this monitor analyzes a full range of body measurements, including weight, body fat percentage, body water percentage, metabolic age, bone mass, and physique rating. It's a mouthful of measurements, but what it means is that with the Tanita BC554, you now have the unprecedented ability to monitor your body and the effects of your diet and fitness routines, comfortably and affordably in the convenience of your own home.

With the Tanita BC554, up to four users can benefit. Simply supply your gender, age, height and weight in the memory, step on the scale, and the monitor does the rest. The results are analyzed according to each user's information, and the result -- displayed in the monitor's 2.25-inch LCD screen -- is the one of the most comprehensive at-home readings you can get.

This monitor, which is about the same size as a typical bathroom scale, is ideal for anyone who is serious about monitoring their health and fitness. Knowing your body fat percentage -- the amount of body fat as a proportion of your body weight -- is essential if you want to create a diet and exercise plan that helps reduce the risk of certain conditions such as high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Body water percentage is the total amount of fluid in your body expressed as a percentage of your total weight. Maintaining a healthy body water percentage ensures that your body functions efficiently. The metabolic age level is related to your body's metabolic rate and helps you maintain the daily minimum level of energy or calories your body requires when resting or sleeping to function effectively. Even though your total body weight might not change drastically over time, your muscle mass and body fat levels may be changing. Keeping tabs on them can help you stay at a lower risk of certain diseases. As you become more active and reduce the amount of body fat, your physique rating will also change accordingly. The physique rating helps you maintain a diet and fitness program to achieve your desired level. And knowing your levels of visceral fat -- the fat in the abdominal cavity and surrounding the vital organs -- can help you keep heart disease and high blood pressure at bay, and may delay the onset of type two diabetes. In short, this monitor gives you essential information and greater control as you work to stay healthy and live a more active, vital life.

A Good Source of Inspration

As long as you realize that this is not a precision measuring instrument, you'll be happy with this scale. What it is good for is monitoring trends in your weight and body fat.

There are about 10 functions on this scale. Two, maybe three are useful. Your weight. That's a good one to have. Body fat %. This number will fluctuate considerably depending on many factors. Perspiration is one. So you have to get into the habit of taking readings in consistent environments, like the same time of day, x hours after eating or exercising, etc. Again, you're not getting an exact number, you're tracking trends. There are numbers for bone mass, body moisture %, calories required (BMI I think), visceral fat (or something like that. The fat around your organs), age (or what age your body's shape is in) and a physique index. My physique is up to 2 (I started at 1 having done little exercising lately). My age reading was 50 (being 54 I thought I was doing good till I read that the scale doesn't go over 50).

So I check my weight, body fat, age, and physique rating, and pretty much ignore the others. Although some of the other readings can indicate that your environment is uniform. So I don't really need to know that I have 7lbs of bones, but that if that number changes, maybe some other factor has changed, too.

I'm pleased with this scale. I've had it about 4 months now, and all is well. I just need to get that physique rating up, and body fat % down. The scale won't make you exercise, but it will make you glad you did.

Tanita BC533 Glass Innerscan Body Composition Monitor

Customer Reviews

Tanita BC533 measures weight, body fat and so much more!
For many years I used a digital scale that gave me a different readout each time I used it. I like to weigh daily but found that stepping up and down on the scale several times to get an average weight was frustrating. I thought that was the norm with scales until I started reading scale reviews and discovered that many people found the Tanita line to be accurate. If they weighed several times in a row they got a consistent readout. They did not have to take an average as I did with my Health-O-Meter. As a treat to myself, for losing 10 pounds, I decided to purchase a Tanita and after doing some research opted for the Tanita BC533.

The Tanita BC533 is a state of the art scale that measures your weight (to two-tenths of a pound), body fat, visceral fat, bone mass, metabolic age and muscle mass. It is very simple to operate. You input your height, weight, average physical activity level and age. The Tanita will remember this information for up to four people so you only have to do it once, unless your information changes. (There is also a guest mode if a visitor wants to try it.) Once you have programmed the scale you toe tap your number, step on the platform and you will see your weight and body fat measurement. (Note - If you wear socks the body fat measurement will not work.) Then you can toe tap other buttons of your choice. A little figure gives you a visual cue as to what the buttons are. For example for muscle mass the figure is holding weights. For bone mass there is a tiny skeleton inside the figure. You decide which body composition features you wish to check. You may for example want to check your bone mass once a month, or then again you may want to check it weekly. It's up to you. It's as simple as pressing the corresponding button, and takes only seconds.

Tanita has also introduced the Ironman Innerscan line. I was not sure of the difference so I called customer service. Amber went out of her way to explain the benefits of the Innerscan line, and the basic difference between the regular Innerscan and the Ironman. The Ironman gives you your BMI or basal metabolic caloric rate. This is the basic number of calories your body needs. The regular Innerscan (like the BC533) gives you your DCI instead. The DCI is a calculation where the BMI is multiplied by your activity level to tell you the number of calories you are taking in to maintain the weight you are. When you see this information you can then adjust up or down to help you gain or lose weight or stay the same. Nifty!

Tanita includes a guide with the scale that explains exactly how the scale works. The scale is a bioimpedence device. A low level current (which you don't feel) passes through your body and the impedance or resistance level is used to calculate body composition. The booklet explains healthy ranges of body fat and also explains what body water percentage, visceral fat, etc. mean.

The scale is also very attractive. Sleek styling and easy to use. Those with poor vision may find the buttons a little hard to see. But the visual clues will help. Despite the glass surface the scale stays very clean.

The BC533 is an outstanding tool to help you accomplish your health goals!

Very useful precision health monitor with stylish design.,
Being an avid swimmer, cyclist, runner, and outdoors fanatic, I decided to buy the Tanita BC533 to monitor my fitness beyond just body weight. I researched around the web and found mostly positive reviews on Tanita scales. I've also considered the Tanita Iron Man BC554 with similar user modes and more recall capabilites but the BC533 just looks more stylish: shaped like a chromosome. Amazon offered a good price with free shipping and a $30 gift certificate for Tanita Body Composition Monitors. Subtract another $30 from that if one applies for the Amazon visa: an Win-Win transaction!

To get accurate measurements, one would need to obtain readings under consistent conditions, i.e., approx. same time of the day, no meals within 3 hrs., similar hydration conditions, etc. I found most of the functions to be helpful: Weight, %Body fat, %Total body water (makes sure one is not dehydrated), Visceral fat % (getting rid of fat around the waist), Muscle mass & Physique rating (making sure one is not losing muscle mass while reducing fat), Bone mass (making sure one is not calcium/mineral deficient and losing bone mass), DCI (Daily Caloric Intake=amount of calories one need to intake the next 24hrs. to maintain current weight)& Metabolic age (calculates one's Basal Metabolic Rate and age associated with that age). The BC533 comes with batteries, an easy to understand manual, and a body composition measurements guide. Holy moley, my metabolic age is 16!

Updated 12-31-06: My Tanita BC533 is still working well. Periodic cleaning of the sensor surfaces has kept the weight measurements fairly consistent. The % body fat and other measurements tend to vary since users can't duplicate exact measuring conditions EVERY time. For <$50, don't expect "sports clinic" accuracy levels of physiological measurements. I exercise regularly and eat healthy foods (as much as I want) so preventing weight (fat) gain and maintaing muscle mass is not a problem; and this scale has been helpful.

You: On A Diet: The Owner's Manual for Waist Management (Hardcover)

You: On A Diet: The Owner's Manual for Waist Management (Hardcover)

Editorial Reviews
For the first time in our history, scientists are uncovering astounding medical evidence about dieting--and why so many of us struggle with our weight and the size of our waists. Now researchers are unraveling biological secrets about such things as why you crave chocolate or gorge at buffets or store so much fat.

Michael Roizen and Mehmet Oz, America's most trusted doctor team and authors of the bestselling YOU series, are now translating this cutting-edge information to help you shave inches off your waist. They're going to do it by giving you the best weapon against fat: knowledge. By understanding how your body's fat-storing and fat-burning systems work, you're going to learn how to crack the code on true and lifelong waist management.

Roizen and Oz will invigorate you with equal parts information, motivation, and change-your-life action to show you how your brain, stomach, hormones, muscles, heart, genetics, and stress levels all interact biologically to determine if your body is the size of a baseball bat or of a baseball stadium. In YOU: On a Diet, Roizen and Oz will redefine what a healthy figure is, then take you through an under-the skin tour of the organs that influence your body's size and its health. You'll even be convinced that the key number to fixate on is not your weight, but your waist size, which best indicates the medical risks of storing too much fat.

Because the world has almost as many diet plans as it has e-mail spammers, you'd think that just about all of us would know everything there is to know about dieting, about fat, and about the reasons why our bellies have grown so large. YOU: On a Diet is much more than a diet plan or a series of instructions and guidelines or a faddish berries-only eating plan. It's a complete manual for waist management. It will show you how to achieve and maintain an ideal and healthy body size by providing a lexicon according to which any weight-loss system can be explained. YOU: On a Diet will serve as the operating system that facilitates future evolution in our dieting software. After you learn about the biology of your body and the biology and psychology of fat, you'll be given the YOU Diet and YOU Workout. Both are easy to learn, follow, and maintain. Following a two-week rebooting program will help you lose up to two inches from your waist right from the start.

With Roizen and Oz's signature accessibility, wit, and humor, YOU: On a Diet--The Owner's Manual for Waist Management will revolutionize the way you think about yourself and the food you consume, so that you'll diet smart, not hard. Welcome to your body on a diet.

Customer Reviews
Loading a book with humorous caricatures, myths, and factoids is a risky undertaking, when readers expect doctors to remain "formal". But, the authors have opted to present hard science in simple artistic format and succeeded in rendering it palatable, at least for the segment of readers interested in the mechanics of disease. The gamble with caricatures added a legendary aura to the book that will endure for future generations.

The main contribution in the book, beside its educational style, is emphasizing the "waist size" as a reliable index for healthy living. The authors advanced their argument through physiological reasoning. They focused on the omental and skin fats and intestinal infection and inflammation in relation to waist size. Thus, the smaller is the waist size, the lesser the inflammation and the depot of fat that hinders health.

The book falls into an introduction, 12 chapters, and three appendices that could be summarized as follows.

Introduction: "You: On a Diet. Work Smarter, Not Harder" introduces the reader to the main idea of the book. That is management of waist size through understanding the biology of eating. It tests the reader's common knowledge through a multiple choice test that targets the various aspects of the history and science of eating

Chapter 1:" The Ideal Body: What Your body Is supposed to Look Like" discusses the interplay of genetics and environment in shaping our physique.

Chapter 2: "Can't Get No satisfaction: the Science of Appetite" describes the rule of the central nervous system in controlling satiety through hormonal feedback from the stomach, intestine, and fat. It simplifies matters through two hormones: Leptin for satisfaction and Ghrelin for hunger.

Chapter 3: "Eater's Digest: How Food travels through Your Body" describes, in an educational style, the journey of food from mouth, tongue, stomach, intestine, colon, to liver, heart, muscles. Its humorous caricatures make it invaluable and entertaining.

Chapter 4: "Gut Check: The Dangerous Battles of Inflammation in Your Belly" describes the first battle of digestion between the body and food intake within the intestine. The outcome of digestion affects the liver, skin, and general health. Its main hostile participants are inflammation and infection. Omental, skin, and liver fat replete from the ingested food. It considers the intestine as the second brain by virtue of its millions of neurons and 95% of whole body serotonin.

Chapter 5: "Taking a fat Chance: How Fat Ruins Your Health" dwells on the omentum fat, described in chapter 4, and extends its effects to arterial narrowing and mechanical hindrance of breathing and mobility. Arterial narrowing deprives the whole body of its health causing cancer, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Omental fat is claimed to be more ominous than subcutaneous fat because the omentum lies on the solid vital organs while the subcutaneous fat is peripheral and remote.

Chapter 6: "Metabolic Motors: Your Body's Hormonal fat Burners" describes how metabolism is managed by hormonal signals from the adrenals, thyroids, and gonads.

Chapter 7: "Make the Move: How You Can Burn Fat Faster" discusses the effect of exercise, weight lifting (strength) and aerobics (stamina) on developing the energy management system by: increasing metabolism, burn energy, release endorphins (pleasure stimulants), and unclog blood vessels.

Chapter 8: "The Chemistry of Emotions: The Connection between Feelings and Food" discusses the relationship between behavior and neurotransmitters: norepinephrine, serotonin, dopamine, gamma aminobutyric acid, and nitric oxide. It thus relates eating to emotions such as anger, depression, anxiety, stress, jealousy, and loneliness.

Chapter 9: "Shame on Who? The Psychology of failed Diet" deals with the thought process of dieting versus the action process. It describes three areas of personality tests: eating pattern, exercise pattern, and coping pattern.

Chapter 10: "Make a You-Turn" describes strategies for accomplishing healthy body through eating, exercising, and coping with failure and recovery. It makes the waist size its critical index for success. Here where academic reasoning addresses the universal suffering from distended bellies in contemporary subjects.

Chapter 11: "The You activity Plan: Physical Strategies for Waist Management" is where the authors default. They suggest three-20-minute sessions per week of strengthening and stretching exercises. Those range from shoulder rolling, crossing, clapping, forward bend, push up, yoga poses, crunches, to dumbbell squats, lunges, and rowing. Here, the reader senses the detachment of academics from real advancement in workout experience.

Chapter 12: "The You Diet; The Waist-Management Eating Plan" recommends three meals plus snacks daily and dessert every other day. It prohibits sugars, simple carbohydrates, fructose, trans fat, saturated fat, and flour. It also has extensive menu and advices on how to choose among fast food if you have to. The forty pages of menu is a total waste, as people do not trust medical books in preparing their meals (personal opinion).

The three appendices deal with drugs, plastic surgery, and digestive surgery for overweight people.

The major drawback in the book is the exercise recommendation and meals menu. Those show the aloofness of the authors from modern America. The web is rich in better ideas on exercise and nutrition that work and get results. The book should have limited its scope to what the authors know best: applied physiology.

Mohamed F. El-Hewie
Author of
Essentials of Weightlifting and Strength Training