As you likely know, the journey toward improved weight and health is continuous. More than just a few days long, or even a few weeks, your journey is ongoing. Whether you’re working hard to meet a goal — or you’re working hard to maintain that goal — the determination, endurance and focus your actions require must go on.
However, we also know how easy it is to lose that focus! That’s why monitoring your progress and reflecting on it each day is so important. By tracking your progress, your challenges and triumphs, you’re more likely to stay on track and refine your goals over time. Below, we offer some tips and tools for monitoring your progress so that your journey with weight and health can be a little easier.
7 Tools to Help You Measure Your Progress
- Recent Pictures for Each Milestone – No matter where you’re at along your journey, you should be proud of your progress and your decision to manage your health. For each milestone along the way, try to snap a picture of yourself that motivates you to keep working toward your goals. Then, when you reach your next milestone, you’ll be able to see all of the healthy changes you’ve made for your body from that photograph!
- Workout Log – Stay on top of your physical exercise with a workout log. In that log, write down the activity you completed, the duration of your workout, the intensity, and calories burned if that’s something you want to track. If you’re strength training, you can even write down how much weight you lifted or how many reps you completed. By logging your physical activity, you’ll have a clearer idea of how to improve and what goals you want to meet!
Clothes – Paying close attention to the way your clothes fit can be a great tool for tracking your progress, and a wonderful way to stay inspired! Instead of throwing them away, you might try keeping old clothes around as a reminder of how far you’ve come and how much farther you’re willing to go.- Food Journal – Keeping track of what you’ve eaten throughout the day, as well as recipes and food inspirations, can help you see how your nutrition habits have changed over time. A food journal also shows you what eating patterns have worked for you and what hasn’t, which can help you refine your future goals.
- Physical Measurements – Tools such as scales and BMI calculators can help you see how your body has been changing throughout your journey. Just remember that numbers and measurements can sometimes be misleading, as is the case with muscle vs. fat.
- Performance Assessments – Take some time to assess your physical capacities and what you’ve been able to achieve compared to earlier on in your journey. Can you lift more weight than before? Are you able to run/walk a longer distance? Performance assessments can show you how your body and health have improved, and inspire you to keep challenging your limits!
- Routine health screenings – Your weight matters, for your health. Along your journey, monitor your progress by staying up-to-date on your blood pressure, heart rate, metabolism, cholesterol and any chronic conditions you may have. If your health seems to be improving, you’ll see how far you’re coming!
No matter what tools you use along the way, just remember your journey for what it is — a journey! You’re allowed to go through curve balls, bumps and plateaus. Your long-term progress is what matters, so enjoy the process!
Looking for more tools on your journey with weight and health? Get some more inspiration for what to put in your “weight management tool kit” by CLICKING HERE.
