The most common and easiest way to track your personal fitness progress is on the scale. The scale has it’s perks because it’s very simple to step on, but the scale doesn’t show you the whole picture. Here are a few ways to track your progress without a scale, and reasons you may want to consider other options.

I personally have seen the scale drop 6 pounds in 12 hours. No joke. You have to understand that the scale may jump if your hormones change (hello, TOM.) The scale may jump if you had a carb-a-licious weekend and then may drop rapidly when you body stops retaining that water.

Most importantly, if you are following strength training workout plans you are going to be CHANGING YOUR BODY COMPOSITION. So you weight may not rapidly drop, especially at first. This should not be a cause for concern. This means we are replacing fat with muscle (more or less) and you will shed inches sometimes before pounds. This is good because muscle is more dense than fat and rather than just dropping all your fat and being skinny and jiggly, you will be tight and lean.

Let’s say you had it in your head that you want to weigh 135 pounds, you weighed 155, but you had your absolute dream body. You loved how you looked, how you felt.. would you still care about the scale? NO! The scale represents nothing. It’s a completely arbitrary number that you and only you, put any value in.

Also, let’s look at this pragmatically.. who sees that number on the scale other than you? NO ONE. Others see your physical body and your personality. Literally not a single person in the entire world sees or cares about what you weigh other than yourself. Maybe consider focusing on something else?

There are other ways to track progress without a scale that I highly recommend:

Progress pictures:
Take front, side and back, full body photos every two or four weeks. These photos need to be taken with consistency: in the same bikini and shoes every time; in the same lighting (which means time of day if there is natural light involved); with the same backdrop, preferably by a blank wall; from the same perspective (not looking down at yourself from your iphone in one then the next by your very short 4 year old). Then look at the photos side by side on your computer to compare, if you see little change within week one and week three, then try looking at week one and week five and I am sure you will notice a big difference then!

Measurements:

Neck – Measure around the largest part of your neck

Bust – Place measuring tape across your nipples and measure around the largest part of your chest

Chest – Place measuring tape just under your breasts/pecs and measure around the torso

Waist – Place measuring tape about a 1/2 inch above your bellybutton (at the narrowest part of your waist) to measure around your torso, fully exhale and measure before inhaling again

Hips – Place measuring tape across the widest part of your hips/ booty and measure all the way around

Thighs – Measure around the widest part of each thigh

Calves – Measure around the widest part of each calf

Upper arms – Measure around the widest part of each arm (above the elbow)

Forearms – Measure around the widest part of each arm


When measuring, stand tall with your muscles relaxed rather than flexed – and stay consistent! Make sure you are using a flexible measuring tape that doesn’t sag but isn’t super tight either. Try to keep the measurements on the same part of your body. If necessary write down how many inches away from your knee your thigh measurement was taken, etc.  Try to do these the same day of the week, same time of day, etc, just like the photos. You can do both sides, or just stick all to one – up to you

Performance based goals:

Time your mile; time how long it takes to do 50 burpees; see how many pushups you can do in 60 seconds; see how many pull ups you can complete; find your one rep max deadlift. These are benchmarks. You can choose any you would like to work on and focus on those things in your training. If you want a faster mile time, run sprints. If you want to be able to do five pull ups, find a pull up program and follow it. These performance based goals should make training fun, so you “get lost” in your fitness and enjoy it so much it takes the pressure off of your fat loss goals.

Track your effort:

I understand that if your goal is to lose 30 pounds, tracking your effort isn’t glamorous.. you just want to lose 30 pounds and feel hot in a mini skirt. But what does it take to feel hot in a mini skirt? EFFORT. So you may as well track it and take pride in it, because unless you do, it’s going to be a long haul and you may build resentment. I know we have all had those moments of frustration where we say “but I’ve done my daily workouts for 14 weeks, I’ve said no to so many cheat meals, I’ve followed my clean eating meal plan perfectly and I still am not at my goal. What’s the point?!” If you track your effort you can look back and feel proud.

Try marking off days on a calendar you did your daily workout. Try posting your sweaty selfies to your social media daily. (I ask my clients to do this in our private Facebook group.)  If you turn down going to drinks with your girlfriends, deposit the money you would have spent into a separate bank account to save up for a weekend getaway or new outfit.

When you see changes happening in your inches and photos.. when you feel changes happening in your performance.. or when you see the progress visibly tracked..  it’s much easier to trust the process and not get so frustrated with the stupid scale!!!!

What’s your favorite way to track progress without a scale?

Your Coach,

Kyra

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