Taking that first step into starting your fitness journey can be exciting and scary because there is a lot you have to think about. Like what your goals are; losing fat, becoming stronger, training for something. You need to having things in place to be able to measure your progress through your journey!
Here are some ways that you can measure your progress based on your fitness goals:
- Clothes fitting better or becoming baggy. This is a great way to measure your progress for a goal to lose weight/fat. A scale can shift in numbers due to various of reasons. But if it is easier to get your clothes on or they fit better it is a great sign that things are moving in the right direction.
- Having more energy. One of the benefits to fixing your metabolism by creating and maintaining healthy habits is an increase in your energy levels. As your body is not using as much as energy it used to each time you lose some pounds of fat.
- Continuously upping the weight you’re lifting at the gym. This is a great measure in the strength that you are gaining from working out and maintaining healthy eating habits.
- Things that were once hard now becoming easier. Say that you got out of breath really easy, once you started your fitness journey you noticed that the things that used to make you out breath does not anymore or it has lessen over time. That being said this can be a great measure in your improving cardiovascular health or even weight loss.
- Better relationship with food. This a great way to measure your progress in your fitness journey. Soon you will realize food is fuel for your body and different food gives your body different things. By understanding that all foods have a place in your diet (yes, that means cookies) you create yourself a well balanced diet as well as a good relationship with food. That means no guilt around eating certain foods, binge eating, or labeling food good and bad.
- Health conditions becoming better or in some cases disappearing. There is a reason that health professionals recommended everyone to get some type of physical activity. If one of your goals is to get better control of a medical condition through healthy habits and exercise like Diabetes then using your blood glucose levels or A1C and seeing if they are becoming more stable or have lowered can be great tools to measure your progress. In some cases bad like bad cholesterol can be reversed with healthy diet and exercise.
- Less everyday pain. Have you ever heard the saving that a body in motion stays in motion? Well it’s totally true! If it is one of your goals is to gain strength after an injury or start moving more because of arthritis, then measuring your pain levels is another way to gage your fitness progress. In most cases the more you engage in physical activity the less pain you will likely to feel.
- Progress photos. A great way to physically see the fat loss in your body if that’s your goal is through progress photos! They help put in perspective all the hard work you put into your fitness journey between each set of photos!
Your fitness journey is a very personal. Which is great because it allows you to decide what goals you want to set and how you are going to measure your progress to make sure you reach them. There are so many different way to measure progress in fitness than just measuring your waist or stepping on the scale. Find what works for you best !
Hey everyone thank you for reading ! If you like the post please give it a like or a comment to let me know! – Jessica Natale
The Average Spoonie 