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Measuring Progress
By Chad Tackett
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Success can be measured on a number of levels. It's important
to measure your progress by the new healthy habits you're
adopting as well as by your appearance. Long-term decreases
in medical problems, injury, and other health risks and
an improved quality of life, with or without weight loss,
are the most important measures of success.
Short- and medium-term changes can also be measured regularly
during the process. These include obvious changes in health-related
behavior patterns such as a decreased reliance on medications,
increased ability to perform physical activity, a reduced
intake of fat, and the increased intake of dietary fiber,
vitamins, and minerals in your diet.
If you've started making slight changes in how your food
is cooked or prepared, or if you're reading labels at the
grocery store and are discovering new tastes and textures,
you're making great improvements towards a healthier lifestyle.
When you feel good about yourself and acknowledge the changes
you're making along the way, you're more likely to keep
moving forward on your path.
Physical indicators of progress towards a healthier body
fat distribution include the waist circumference and waist-hip
ration (WHR). Because abdominal obesity has consistently
been associated with risk factors for diabetes and heart
disease, any reduction in the waist circumference or in
the WHR is a positive step towards a healthier body fat
distribution, regardless of weight loss.
Another good way of determining physical progress is having
your body fat measured by either hydrostatic weighing, electrical
impedance, or simply by using skinfold calipers. This latter
is by far the cheapest and most accessible. Although it
is not as accurate as the other two methods, it can at the
very least give you a beginning point from which you can
easily measure decreases in body fat. Please refer to the
Global Health and
Fitness Personal Trainer Directory (www.global-fitness.com)
to find a certified personal trainer in your area that can
measure your body fat percentage.
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However you decide to measure your physical progress, never
use the scale as an indicator. Your weight does not reflect
how healthy you are or the progress you've made. When you
step on the scale, your weight reflects the combined total
of both your lean body weight (muscle, bone, organs, fluids)
and body fat weight. Two people with identical body weights
do not have the same body composition; they could, indeed,
have entirely different body types. For example a 170-pound
man might have 60 pounds of body fat and 110 pounds of lean
body mass. A healthier, more muscular man might only have
25 pounds of body fat and 145 pounds of lean body mass.
Even though these two individuals weigh the same, one is
in much better shape than the other.
Using the scale to measure your progress gives you no information
about the body composition (fat vs. muscle) changes that
are actually occurring. The scale may show that you've lost
seven pounds, but it can't tell you that half of the weight
was muscle and water, not fat. Similarly, people become
discouraged when they haven't lost any weight, even though
they have actually lost pounds of fat and replaced them
with pounds of firm, fat-burning muscle.
Developing healthier eating and physical activity habits
will most likely result in a loss of body fat even though
the scale may indicate that you weigh the same. Learn to
use other methods of determining body composition and pay
more attention to improvements in how you feel, in your
self-esteem, and in your physical appearance.
Height/weight charts and other tables such as the BMI (Body
Mass Index: weight in kilograms divided by height in meters,
squared) have similar limitations when used as an indicator
of progress towards a healthier lifestyle for several reasons.
First, these formulas are not always related to how fat
you are since they don't take into account body composition/fat
distribution. Many people who are muscular or short and
stocky have a high BMI, even though they are not necessarily
fat or at high risk for disease. Second, the BMI is only
appropriate for adults 20-65 years of age. It cannot account
for patterns of growth in adolescents or in the elderly,
who may decrease in height with age. Third, the focus is
still on changing one's weight to produce a lower BMI (since
it's not possible to increase one's height). This continues
to promote weight change as the ideal way to improve health.
Don't forget to notice and acknowledge improvements in
energy, performance, self-esteem, and the many other benefits
you'll gain from this healthier lifestyle: improvements
in health risk factors and medical conditions, improved
quality of life and psychological functioning, healthier
eating, and more enjoyable physical activity. Good luck:
I hope you enjoy all the wonderful benefits of a healthy,
active lifestyle.
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Global-Fitness.com has helped thousands of men and women of all ages, fitness
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