Measuring progress

You’ve taken a big step by deciding to work with a nutrition coach (me). For most people, the goal is weight loss (or more specifically body fat loss). There are a lot of tools we can use to measure progress. Let’s review some options.

Option 1: The Scale

The scale can be a great way to measure fat loss. Typically, your body weight will go down if you lose body fat. However, that’s not always the case. If you’re focused on your nutrition as well as strength training, you may be building muscle while losing fat (e.g. the holy grail). In this case, the scale may not budge even though you are actually making progress. I know - not cool.

The scale can also mess with your head without proper expectations. So let me help you set them: the scale is going to be different every day, and I want you to focus on weekly and monthly averages if you choose to weigh yourself daily. There are so many things that impact your weight on a day-to-day basis like: a salty dinner, a late dinner, a late salty dinner, poor sleep, poor training recovery (muscles be sore), stress, etc…To illustrate this, I’m going to share a graph of my weight over the course of a month.

Over the course of a month, my average weight was 182.6 lbs. You’ll see I was pretty consistently around this number (although it varied day-to-day). Then I had a salty meal from a bomb Lebanese place nearby (mmmmm….shawarma) and my weight went up a couple of pounds. Then I happened to have a fun dinner planned with friends at a local steak joint. More salt. Scale higher. And not just like a pound - it went up 3 pounds. Did I gain 3 pounds of fat after two less-than-typical meals? Of course not. You’ll see that after 5-6 days my weight came back to where it had previously been.

This is really important to know because sometimes people freak the fuck out when the scale goes up despite good eating and exercising habits. They think the plan isn’t working. They want to make drastic changes. They give up.

If you’re going to weigh yourself, please just know that daily variation is normal. You’re also going to run into times when the scales moves a bunch and also doesn’t move at all for days on end. I’m going to remind you to stick with the program and utilize at least one of the other options in this blog post so we get a really full picture.

To be clear: I am a fan of daily weighing. I weigh myself daily because it helps me identify trends like the picture above. But I also know that it can be a trigger for some people, and there’s no reason to use this tool to measure progress if it doesn’t work for you.

Option 2: Measurements

I’m a fan of measurements. You can use - wait for it - measuring tape to record the values for certain body parts. If this sounds like something you might want to do, we’ll measure every 2 weeks or so.

You’ll buy an inexpensive measuring tape and measure your: thighs, hips, waist, chest, and arms. We’ll keep track of the numbers and look for trends over time.

The reason I’m a fan of measurements, is because even though most people want a lower weight, what they actually want is to look leaner. Measurements do a much better job of objectively showing this compared to the scale.

Remember how I also said that the scale might not move if you’re losing body fat but gaining muscle? Well, that’s where measurements come in. In the same situation, measurements will go down even if the scale doesn’t. That will show (prove) that you’re making progress.

Option 3: Your Clothes Fit Better

This might sound too easy, but that’s because it is. When you wear your clothes, do they fit a little looser? Are you using a different spot on your belt? Did the jeans from 5 years ago go from too tight to comfortable? If so, congrats, you just used your clothes to measure your progress.

Option 4: Pictures

Taking pictures regularly of yourself is yet another way to measure progress. These pair really well with measurements. If you want to do this, we’ll use the coaching app to upload pictures from the front/side/back every month. I take progress pictures, and I’ve found that I’ll start to notice things in the mirror or in the pictures prior to the scale moving. It’s like my weight is the last thing to register when I’m making a change.

Pictures can also be really eye opening. You likely won’t notice much when looking in the mirror on a day to day basis, but over time, these are a really cool measure for comparison.

Option 5: Energy Levels

This is obviously a little less objective, but rating your energy over time can be a great way to track progress. It’s nothing fancy - just a good old 1-10 scale. However, once you are consistently dialed in with nutrition and movement/exercise habits, you may be surprised at how great you feel. This is also really important because I’ve found that it validates all of your good habits. It’s also great motivation to keep doing them over time.

I’ve found that once folks start to make the connection between what they put in their body consistently and how they feel, they’ll want to make choices that make them feel good.

Wrapping Up

Those are a few of the options we can use to evaluate progress. It’s important to note that I will suggest we use 3 of them. This is because they all don’t always change at the same time, and we can leverage the others if one isn’t showing progress just yet. It can also help us identify if we need to alter the plan if they are all stagnant for a few weeks (note that I said weeks, not days).