How to Measure Progress While on a Diet

When on a diet and weight loss regime, it is often hard to see progress. This can lead to you feeling demotivated and wanting to give up. Seeing your progress as time goes by will make all those hours of healthy food and half killing yourself on the treadmill worth it. Here I will explain the different ways you can monitor your progress over time.

The first method of tracking progress is to take pictures of yourself topless in the mirror. Doing so once every 2 weeks in the same pose, in the same position, will enable you to see yourself progress as time goes by. This will be a great motivator and will make those hours of hard work feel worth it.

For best results I recommend taking a picture of:

-Front torso in relaxed state
-Front torso with abs tensed
-Relaxed shot from the side

Taking these pictures every fortnight will enable you to compare as time goes by and you will see that progress, the idea of taking photos will also be a great motivator for you to work hard for the next time you take a photo.

Another very simple way to measure your fat loss progress is to take regular measurements of your body. This requires no fancy equipment, simply a measuring tape. Even when you think you are making no progress, you may actually have lost some weight and measurements are a great way to prove this.

Places to measure include:

• Chest- Measure around the chest in line with your nipples, be careful not to pull the tape too tight as this will effect the results.
• Waist- Measure at approximately half an inch above your belly button around your waist.
• Thighs- Measure around the largest part of your thigh
• Calves and forearms- Measure around the biggest part of your forearms and your calves.

A simple way to track the progress is to take measurements every couple of weeks and I would recommend placing the measurements into a simple spreadsheet, or simply making a table so that you can easily see your progress as the weeks and months go by.

Another way to track your progress is to weigh yourself regularly. I recommend weighing yourself once a week, and I recommend doing it first thing in the morning wearing the same clothes every time so that there are no weight fluctuations due to heaviness of clothing or added food and water weight that you gain as the day goes on.

Remember you are aiming for around 1lb to 2lbs weight loss each week and so if you see this reflected in your weigh ins then you know you are on track!

The last way to track weight loss progress is through the monitoring of your body fat percentage. You can buy scales that do this, but they are very inaccurate and so I wouldn’t recommend using them. A great way to monitor body fat percentage is through buying a pair of calipers.

Posted in Weight Loss