No you do not!  While we welcome referrals from our local GPs, anyone can self-refer for any of our services if they feel that NuMi can help them achieve their health goals.

PracticeBetter is the online software we use to communicate with you about your bookings, we share with you any meal plans and session notes and we also use this to share with you important messages from your Health Coach.  It is an ‘all in one’ hub to help you easily make your appointments, it keeps all of your important information stored in one place and you can easily access the resources you need to support your health journey.

Our range of comprehensive Health Check packages are ideal for those who live outside of Norfolk. Over just a few hours, you'll visit our Hub in Holt to complete a top-to-bottom analysis of your key health markers.  You will then meet with your Health Coach the following day (or at a time that suits you) for an online consultation where they will share the results of your Health Check with you together with advice on the changes you could implement to support the achievement of your health goals.  We also have a range of accommodation options available for you at our partner properties in Holt and the surrounding areas at a discounted rate for clients of NuMi, so please give us a call on 01263 800 667 for more information.

We have partnered with a range of health professionals within Norfolk who support our members in a wide variety of areas, and your NuMi Health Coach will be able to refer you to one of these professionals if this is required during the term of your membership.

After you have had a Health Check, you can become a NuMi Member where you will receive monthly coaching from your Health Coach and a personalised meal plan, plus 10% discount on all future Health Checks.  Complete the sign-up process by clicking here, where you will be taken through to our partner application called Practice Better.

Our monthly NuMi Membership does not have a minimum time commitment, but we believe that the ongoing support is invaluable for you to make significant changes to your health.  You might think that you can see a specialist once and then you’ll know what to do, but how many times do you end up falling into your old ways? Our monthly check-ins with our expert Health Coaches help you to make those simple, sustainable changes that are needed to make a life-long impact on your health and happiness.

When signing up to become a NuMi Member, you will provide us with your payment details via Practice Better that you wish to use. Payment will be taken monthly for your membership. When you are ready for your next Health Check, this is simply paid for at the time of booking, where your 10% NuMi Member discount will be applied.

Just contact one of the NuMi team members via email at info@numi.org.uk with your request, and we will cancel your membership for you.

A NuMi Member is someone who has joined us on a monthly basis to receive ongoing coaching and advice from one of our Health Coaches.  This membership is invaluable in supporting you along your health journey with accountability, support and advice in all areas of your nutrition, sleep, stress and exercise to ensure you are constantly progressing towards your health goals.  There is a monthly subscription fee of £30 which provides you with a 30 minute consultation with your health coach, a personalised meal plan and 10% discount off future Health Checks.  Membership is only available to those who have had a health check.

Your consultation with your personal Health Coach will be held online via video call at a time that is convenient to you.  There is the option of daytime and after hours appointments, and you will receive a link to join the video call when you make the booking.

The sample monthly meal plan will provide you with guidance on how to put together 5 day’s worth of meals, including 3 main meals and 2 snacks each day – which are nutritionally balanced to provide you with the macro and micronutrients required to support your health goals.  The meals can be swapped out using the function of the app to provide you with other options that may better suit your personal preferences.  We do offer vegetarian alternatives for the monthly meal plans

We’ve done a lot of research into how best our members can be supported to make the life-long changes required to achieve a healthier and happier life, and having a check-in with our Health Coaches every month is the best way to do this.  As such, we really encourage you to prioritise the 30 minutes each month to meet with your Health Coach as the session can’t be carried over.

The blood tests we take are pretty much painless as they only involve a small finger prick to be able to take the samples we need.  And we’ll keep chatting to you the whole way through so hopefully you won’t even notice that we’re doing it!  It is entirely up to you, however, whether you have these blood tests taken, but we encourage you to have the blood tests so we have an objective way to determine your risk of serious illness such as heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.

VO2 max refers to the maximum amount of oxygen someone can use during intense exercise.  We test this as it has been found to be a key indicator of longevity and quality of life as we age, by giving us insight into your disease risk and possible level of independence based on your results.  There is a strong connection between cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and risk of death - an increased level of CRF reduces your risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke and certain cancers, decreasing your risk of death.  Someone in the bottom quartile of VO2 max for their age group is nearly four times likelier to die than someone in the top quartile.  If you move from the bottom quartile to the 25-50th percentile, you can cut your risk of death nearly in half!
For more information about VO2 max, please refer to these sources:

1. Association of Cardiorespiratory Fitness With Long-term Mortality Among Adults Undergoing Exercise Treadmill Testing
2. Survival of the fittest: VO2max, a key predictor of longevity?

Grip strength is used to measure upper body strength, which gives us an indication of your overall body strength.  Studies have shown that long term health concerns are linked to low body strength, so we encourage our clients to build their overall body strength to reduce their risk of developing chronic conditions such as COPD, diabetes, heart disease and obesity.  Muscle strength is also important as we age for mobility, balance and endurance, and decreased mobility can increase the risk of falls and fractures.  
For more information, please refer to these articles:

1. Hand-grip strength cut points to screen older persons at risk for mobility limitation
2. Association between Handgrip Strength and the Systemic Immune-Inflammation Index: A Nationwide Study, NHANES 2011–2014
3. The association between decreased hand grip strength and hip fracture in older Association of handgrip strength with chronic diseases and multimorbidity: a cross-sectional study
4. Thresholds of handgrip strength for all-cause, cancer, and cardiovascular mortality: A systematic review with dose-response meta-analysis - PubMed
5. Grip Strength Is Associated With Cognitive Performance in Schizophrenia and the General Population: A UK Biobank Study of 476559 Participants

The frequency of your Health Checks is entirely up to you, however we recommend that you are rechecked at least every 3 months.  This will ensure that you can see the progress you are making towards your health goals in 'real time' and make sure that the changes you are making are providing you with your expected health benefits.  Key markers such as cholesterol, blood sugars, vitamin D, visceral fat and VO2 max should definitely change over a 3 month period if you are making the changes that are advised by your health coach to you nutrition and other lifestyle factors.

We will check your Vitamin D levels, as this is important for the regulation of the amount of calcium and phosphate in our bones, teeth and muscles to ensure that they remain healthy and reduce your risk of Osteoporosis, we check your Blood Lipids, including your total Cholesterol, HDL (good) cholesterol, LDL (bad) cholesterol and Triglycerides to assess your risk of Heart Disease, and we also check your HbA1c level which is a measure of your blood sugars over the last 3 months to assess your risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes.  All results will be provided to you during your online consultation with your Health Coach and we will discuss with you how your lifestyle choices might be influencing these.

FatMax testing is a measure of our metabolic health. It identifies the intensity level (heart rate) at which you maximise fat burning during exercise. By understanding how the body burns the fats and carbohydrates you consume at different intensities, a training and nutrition program can be tailored to improve your metabolic efficiency. This means that anytime you do spend exercising, can be as efficient as possible (potentially meaning less time required!) and your dietary intake can be fine tuned to a macronutrient split that is most suitable for your metabolism.  This makes weight management much easier, as well as reducing your risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes and many cancers, by ensuring that your body is as metabolically healthy as possible.

Your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) reflects the energy your body requires at rest, just to 'keep the lights on' so to speak, ie. to ensure that your heart keeps pumping blood around your body, your brain continues to function, your hormonal system produces the hormones to keep you alive, etc.  To ensure that your body functions optimally, we need to know this figure as a starting point to determine how much energy your body needs each day to not just exist, but to really thrive, based on your level of activity.  By providing your body with the right amount of energy at the right time of the day, you can ensure that you are getting the right balance of nutrients which will support your body's metabolism to function better, resulting in increased energy, better management of your weight and improved metabolic health markers such as blood sugar control, reducing your long term disease risk.

Depending on the type of Health Check you select, the measurements we take will differ. We will always measure your height, weight, waist circumference and blood pressure and from these we will calculate your waist to height ratio, Body Mass Index, Heart Age and Diabetes risk score,  giving us an indicator of your risk of serious diseases such as high blood pressure, Type 2 Diabetes, Heart Disease and Stroke.  We will also test your Grip Strength which is a key indicator of the risk of developing many long term health concerns. Depending on your Health Check, you have the option of further measurements including a whole body DEXA scan to determine your body composition, blood testing for cholesterol, blood sugars and Vitamin D, as well as VO2 max testing which will tell us about your cardiovascular capacity, a key indicator of longevity and quality of life as we age.  Click here for more information about each Health Check and the measurements included.

Absolutely!  The DEXA scan uses a tiny dose of ionising radiation (X-rays) to measure your body composition.  The amount of radiation exposure during a scan is minimal, and it’s actually less than one day’s normal background radiation that we each receive every day from outer space and the earth’s natural radiation that we are all exposed to as we go about our day-to-day activities in life.  However, to be extra cautious we do not scan pregnant women and children under the age of 18 years of age.

The total DEXA session is around 30 minutes, but this includes the time we take to get your ready for the scan, ask you some follow up questions, get you into position, conduct the scan and then generate the report.  The actual scan is only around 5-7 minutes in total, so it’s very quick!

We ask that you remove your clothing except for underwear, and we provide you with a gown to wear while the scan is taking place. This is to ensure consistency in scan conditions and outputs for comparison purposes.

Whilst the DEXA scanner is the same for measuring bone density and body composition, they are two very different types of scan. The NuMi body composition report DOES give a good indication of your bone density but this is only an indication and not a definitive, diagnosable result. In other words, it’s not a result a doctor would make any firm decisions on.  Nevertheless, if the indication was unusually high or low then we would advise you to see your GP or a bone specialist for specialist advice.  If you require a dedicated bone scan in relation to low bone density and osteoporosis, you can request these from your GP or get one privately.

The scan and the post-scan consultation will show you how your fat is distributed around your body, in your arms, legs and trunk (torso).  Both men and women can have the fat characteristics of either sex, where the fat is held mainly in your upper body (male distribution, apple-shaped) or limbs/lower body (female distribution, pear-shaped).  We can’t do anything about our fat distribution (sadly!) but it’s good to know. Fat in the upper body can lead to high levels of internal visceral fat, which is more harmful for our health as it surrounds the internal organs (such as your heart, lungs and liver) and is associated with obesity-related diseases such as type-2 diabetes, heart disease, colon cancer and stroke.

• In terms of body composition, the report shows the following for each arm, each leg and trunk (and head) and total:
• Fat mass
• Lean mass
• Bone mass (bone mineral content)
• Total mass (fat + lean + bone)

The scan also gives you these metrics for your whole body:

• Body fat percentage (BF%, fat mass divided by total body mass)
• Fat Mass Index (fat mass divided by height-squared)
• Android/gynoid ratio (BF% in the android (belly region, male fat area) divided by BF% in the gynoid (hip-thigh-buttock region, female fat area)
• Fat Mass Ratio (% Fat Trunk divided by % Fat Legs)
• Trunk-to-Limb Fat Mass Ratio (fat mass of the trunk divided by fat mass total of the legs)
• Visceral Fat (this is an estimate of internal fat in a section of the android region).
• Lean Mass Index (total soft-tissue lean mass divided by height-squared)
• Appendicular Lean Mass Index (soft-tissue lean mass on the limbs divided by height-squared)

The scan will also provide an indication of your bone density (BMD), with these data points for each arm, each leg, left-side ribs, right-side ribs, thoracic spine, lumbar spine, pelvis and head. Note you should not track bone density with whole-body scans. The bone density results are just an indication only.

Our DEXA scanner has a maximum weight limit of 204 kg (that’s 450 pounds or 32 stone).  If you are very heavy and very large, your whole body will probably not fit within the width of the scanning table. The DEXA software is ready for this and enables us to position you with your left arm outside the scanning area, and then mirrors the data from your right arm to your left. This is standard practice for clients who are physically very big.  Height is not an issue. Although the table has a scanning length of about 198cm (about 6’6″), if you are taller than this we will leave part of your head outside of the scanning area. This is fine because we are interested in the composition of your body, not your head!

It is absolutely fine to have a scan while breastfeeding, however, it is NOT OK to have a scan while pregnant. We will ask you to confirm your pregnancy status and will not scan you if there is a chance you may be pregnant.

A DEXA scan is suitable for anyone looking to get in better shape, achieve weight loss or better performance, or just secure your quality of life as you age. By understanding your body composition and working with our Health Coaches, you will have the knowledge and tools to make lifestyle changes that will help you achieve both your short and long term health goals.

To prepare for your DEXA scan, please do not eat (or eat very light) for four hours beforehand and be normally hydrated with water, tea, etc. Don’t over- or under-drink.  Also, do not do any heavy exercise (eg, a gym workout or long run) for the same period.  Please remove as much jewellery as you can before you arrive at NuMi for your scan.

If you have any implants of any material or a Pacemaker, the scan can go ahead as normal. Metal implants will show up as dense bone on your NuMi DEXA report but they will not affect the fat and lean mass data. There is no risk to the operation of your Pacemaker. There is no risk to the structure of operation of your implant.  The DEXA is a very low dose X-ray, and X-rays either pass through objects or they do not.

We recommend about 12-16 weeks (3-4 months) between scans. This is long enough for changes in body composition to have occurred and for you to know that you can stick to your plan but short enough to keep you motivated and give you a short-term target.  We will not scan you more frequently than once in every 6-week period, and not more than 6 times in any year.

A DEXA scan is the gold standard of body composition measurements and bone density measurement.  This will provide you with powerful insight into your current metabolic health and give really clear direction as to where you need to focus your attention in order to reduce your risk of serious illness and disease, as well as a possible low quality of life as you age.  You will gain insight into your bone density which is important to assess your fracture risk, you will better learn where you are storing fat across your body and how this is impacting your risk of serious disease such as cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer's, Dementia and many cancers, as well as how much lean muscle mass you have on your body, which can impact your quality of life as you age and your risk of death.  The scan will give you a baseline measurement of where you are right now, and then after you have put lifestyle changes in place, it's an invaluable tool to keep track of your progress and ensure that your actions are working to reduce your risk of illness.

Find out more here:

Bone Mineral Density Tests: What the Numbers Mean | NIAMS