Measuring Success

Weight is one way to measure progress toward your diet and exercise goals. The problem is, it is only one way to measure. There are many other ways to measure progress and it is very healthy to do so. It is easy to get caught up in the concern of weight, after all, we call the entire area weight loss, weight control or management and other terms that focus strictly on that one number. My focus with clients is to stop thinking about that one number and start thinking about all the other important factors that are changing as you make progress.
Let’s take a look at some of these other factors that you can use to measure your progress instead of worrying only about weight:

1. How good you feel

This is the easiest, fastest way to check to see how you are doing. How you feel after a workout, when you get up in the morning or when you are doing something in your day to day routine is a great measurement of how you are progressing. Energy level, stamina and even mood are good ways to measure. Many people notice that after a short time, they have more energy and feel more confident. And that’s not even touching on the physical fitness that they have realized which makes movements easier than they were before.

2. How your clothes fit

The biggest problem with getting caught up in the weight number is that we are making progress, but in a different way. Muscle is more dense than fat. When we lose fat and gain muscle, often we are becoming leaner (what we want!) while our weight stays the same or even increases slightly. If we are only focused on weight, we miss the victory here as our clothes fit better and we are decreasing in size. I tell clients that when you walk around in public, you don’t have a number on your chest showing your weight. You only have your body and it’s shape. The better you look, the better you feel. The weight is only a number that you see. No one else knows what it is. They only see your shape today.

3. Exercise capacity

Part of our first option (feeling good) is gaining capacity for exercise that you didn’t have before. As you get started on a routine, you may notice that you get tired at a certain point. As you continue to do this routine, you will get stronger and be able to go for a longer period and keep a higher intensity level. Since we know that the more we work, the more results we get, this is a great way to measure success. Not only are we feeling good because we are able to do more, but we also are doing more. This way, the results are going to continue to come.

4. Body composition

To get more technical with the second option, body composition or body fat percentage is a great way to measure your progress because it gets to the bottom of what we want to do. Rather than weight loss, it should really be called fat loss. As we trim body fat, we shape our bodies to the ideal form. As we discussed, the weight doesn’t always go down in direct proportions here. Because of the different densities and distribution of fat and muscle, you may be losing body fat without actually losing weight.

5. Your ideas

What have you done to measure progress? We want to hear from you on ways that you have stuck with a program and continued to see results. Sharing tips and tricks is a great way to help each other reach goals. We look forward to hearing about your success and how you got there!