resistance training

4 Reasons to Track Your Progress

For the first time in my life I am measuring my food, my workouts and tracking my progress.

I have always beens active or worked out. But, I've always done what I feel like when I feel like doing it and have never bothered to measure anything other than step on a scale every now and again.

I wear my Garmin pretty much every day and my heart rate monitor whenever I work out. I also measure my stats once a week.

I wear my Garmin pretty much every day and my heart rate monitor whenever I work out. I also measure my stats once a week.

What have I learned?

1. Progress is motivating!!  

2.5 months ago I could barely get out 10 pushups, I recently hit the 100 pushup mark (no, not all in a row). I recommend shooting for a measurable goal that can be tracked easily so that you're motivated to keep improving.

2. The scale is deceiving.

Pick a day once a week to measure and record your stats.  Seeing a half inch to an inch decrease is actually much more satisfying than seeing the scale drop (and a relief when the scale goes up!). Meeting with my coach once a week and reporting numbers to her forced me to measure my waist, butt, thigh and neck - not just step on a scale.   Both my waist and my thighs tightened and lost inches due to my resistance training. I don't know that I would've noticed that half inch to an inch difference around my thighs if I hadn't actually measured.

3. Accuracy.

If you're going to measure your fat mass percentage, get it done at the most accurate place you can.  At the beginning of my Transformation, I did two different fat percentage tests.  One was a calculation just based off of numbers versus a $20 BodPod test, (more on that here), which is one of the most accurate ways you can test your body fat.  Let's just say there was 6-7% discrepancy between the two tests.  Luckily, the BodPod which is more accurate was the lower of the two!!

4. You probably eat more than you think (and exercise less).

I'm also using my fitness pal -- don't get me wrong, I hate counting calories and I don't live or die by it - especially, because I believe the value of your calories counts way more than just the pure calorie count itself.  But, counting calories does have its place and my fitness pal is super simple, convenient and syncs to my Garmin (which tracks my steps as well as my heart rate).