This post was featured at Everyday Polish on Tuesday March 13th.
How do you know when you REALLY lose weight?
I can just see people giving the answer that I used to give. "When the darn scale shows a drop!" Sometimes it is not that easy.
Previously we talked about finding the time to work out and trying weight loss plans. NOW, we need to talk about how to gauge when you are getting results. This will honestly probably be very similar to things you have read in other magazines, but I want to share my $.02 on the issue.
The scale is not the only indicator that you are losing weight. My trainer constantly tries to drill this into my brain when I complain about the scale not moving fast enough, but my leggings, yes I said leggings, are baggy. Like the picture to your left indicates, one of the best ways to measure yourself is by measuring your body. The essential areas to measure are your:
Previously we talked about finding the time to work out and trying weight loss plans. NOW, we need to talk about how to gauge when you are getting results. This will honestly probably be very similar to things you have read in other magazines, but I want to share my $.02 on the issue.
The scale is not the only indicator that you are losing weight. My trainer constantly tries to drill this into my brain when I complain about the scale not moving fast enough, but my leggings, yes I said leggings, are baggy. Like the picture to your left indicates, one of the best ways to measure yourself is by measuring your body. The essential areas to measure are your:
Chest
Arms (in the middle of your bicep)
Waist (above your belly button)
Hips
Thighs (around the largest part)
Now in order for this to work, you need to ensure that you are measuring yourself at the same exact area each month. It would be great if we could all get mini tattoo markers at the areas above,but that's not realistic for most of us. I would suggest that you even hire a trainer to do it for you since they do this all day everyday for their clients, but I know that is not cost effective. SO, enlist a friend if you can and take a picture when you are measuring for the first time to use as a reference for future measuring sessions. If you hold the tape and your friend takes the shot, you should be able to replicate it next time. I also have friends that measure in 3 spots on their stomach and thighs so they have more areas that could show a potential loss which could be very helpful. (For example, you may see that you lost 1 inch under your bra-strap area, 2 inches from below your belly button, but didn't lose any right above your belly button.)
If you don't believe that you can lose inches and not too many pounds, please check out THIS story from a girl on MyFitnessPal. She only lost about 5lbs but lost 45inches from all over her body.
Another indicator of weight loss is how your clothes fit, and I am not just talking about fitting into your favorite pair of jeans from high school. Are your underwear suddenly a bit lose or do your bras have a gap on the sides now? That means that your body is changing. As I am slowly losing weight, my clothes fit funny. Right now, the waist on my jeans is waaaaay to big for me, BUT my thighs still fit perfectly in my jeans. Go figure? But it shows progress.
If you want to see a photo of my progress, check out THIS post on WIOG.
Hope everyone has a fabulous week! Until next time!
this really is motivating. Whenever I trained for a marathon last year, I didn't lose a single pound. Not one! But I became more toned and lost inches.
ReplyDeleteHilary, Thank you for reading! I feel the same way sometimes... I've been working out for months now, and the scale barely budges BUT I'm noticing all these other changes.
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