As discussed before, instead of just tracking your weight during a program you can also track your body fat percentage and take circumference measurements, but these aren’t the only ways to keep track of your progress either.
A way to track progress similar to taking circumference measurements is to monitor how your clothes are fitting. This method is a lot easier, and more often the truly desired goal. Sometimes we get so obsessed with the scale we fail to realize that we have dropped pant sizes or slipped into some of those old clothes at the end of the closet. Fitting into smaller clothes or seeing the inches go down with our circumference measurements can be very motivating, because along with body fat percentage these results give us more of what we really wanted out of the weight loss program rather than just a number change. A change in the way we look is usually one of the primary goals, which is the final way to track progress.
Using photos is a great way to track your progress visually. Before and after pictures aren’t just for those weight loss commercials we all see on TV. Being able to have an unbiased view of your body from the camera’s perspective is also a great way to really see what has changed during the program. Luckily modern digital cameras make this a much easier and more personal process, as you no longer have to get a Polaroid camera or have someone else develop the pictures for you. Since most changes to the body in a weight loss program easily go unnoticed by ourselves when seen day to day it is very difficult to recognize the changes in ourselves without that older comparison. This is why it is recommended to track as many of these different components as possible during a weight loss program, because regardless if the scale isn’t changing when you are still seeing results in the other categories you are still making progress toward your ultimate goal of improving your health and looking and feeling better.