Have you recently set some fitness goals for yourself? Is your focus for 2021 to improve your overall health? You may already be in fairly good shape, but now you’re looking to take things to the next level. Setting these fitness goals is a great first step and a wonderful way to motivate you, but how will you know if your efforts are successful? This is why tracking and monitoring is so important for anyone looking to make fitness gains.
No matter how big or small your goals are, tracking your gains will be imperative to your success. Not only will it inspire you to keep going, but it can also point out the things that are working and those that maybe need some adjusting. So, let’s examine five ways that you can monitor your fitness gains and make sure you stay on track until your goals are met.
Identify Your Starting Point
In order to track and monitor results, you need to have a clear starting point. Not only will this give you a precise picture of what you’re starting with health wise, it also helps to determine your path forward and the length of time necessary to reach your goals. So, what do you need to make note of? A good place to start is with calculating your current LBM, or lean body mass. This is the difference between your body fat weight and your total body weight. Ideally, you want to aim for a lean body mass of 70-90%. Men tend to be in the higher end, whereas women will want to aim for the lower end. Next, you want to use a measuring tape to measure your hips, waist, chest/bust, arms, and thighs. These starting measurements will paint a picture for you moving forward. You will also want to weigh yourself.
Use Apps to Track Your Progress
Now that you’ve got all your measurements and starting values, it’s important to make note of it somewhere. While you can certainly use a piece of paper, this isn’t exactly convenient. Instead, there are all kinds of fitness tracking apps that you can use that will allow you to input that information and then track your progress moving forward.
Moving forward, you will need to input new measurements as you go in order to show if your efforts are paying off. While it may be tempting to check your weight and measurements daily or weekly, experts suggest doing this once every four weeks. You need to give your body enough time to react to your efforts. This can also be more motivating as you’re likely to see changes in the measurements after four weeks. Suddenly you can see an inch or more off those measurements instead of ¼ inch at a time.
Take Photos Along the Way
Another helpful tip is to take photos of your body in your workout gear to start with, and then along the way. Often, you’ll see changes in the shape and tone of your body before you see movement on the scale or with the measuring tape.
Log Your Food Each and Every Day
For those who are paying closer attention to what they eat, perhaps even cutting back on calories and specific things such as fat, you’ll need to keep a food log. Again, there are a number of fitness apps that make this possible, with many of them coming pre-loaded with tens of thousands of foods already in the database. This makes it easy for you to input items.
The great thing about logging your food is that it will show you just how your eating habits affect your overall health and fitness gains. It may be necessary to make adjustments to when you eat, what you eat, and how much you eat.
Start Keeping Track of Your Workouts
Finally, you want to also log your workouts and exercise routines. Sometimes, you can start to feel frustrated and wonder why you aren’t getting better results faster. Looking at your workout log, you may see that you’re not working out long enough, often enough, or that you’ve got to switch things up and try new exercises.
Meet Those Goals that You Have Set
All of these tips and bits of advice will help you to meet the fitness goals you have set for yourself, and potentially even pass them. Keeping track of your progress is the best way to monitor results and identify areas that need adjustments and attention. You may even exceed your goals, forcing you to set loftier ones.