When confiding the 50 Day Challenge that I have set for myself, I needed to think about how I was going to measure the progress, how I could break this down into target points and goals and then finally, the end point measurements I would be hoping for. In previous posts I have mentioned about the magical end goal number of 172lb... Why this number as a final target point? Well back in March 2017 I was 172lb and I was really quite pleased with how I looked and felt.
So, the 50 Day Challenge and chosen measurements... Anyone that has gone through body transformations in the past will know about all the different measures of progress. Some are controlled by us, others just happen... Here are my thoughts for the next 50 days:
- The most famous: ‘The Sad Step’ (weighing scales). Looking at your relation to the gravity working on your body and the impact your nutrition and training has had on that. I am going to be using weighing scales almost on a daily basis. Obsessive? Nope. Then, why? Well over the years I have come to see that fluctuations in weight are extremely normal, even on a day-to-day basis. How hydrated you are from exercise or lack off drinking the day before impacts on this. The amount of carbs you’ve eaten in the last 48 hours and the amount of water retention this results in, impact on this. If female, hormones impact massively on this. So weighing on a certain day and hoping that it tells you the number you want to hear is a veery risky game and could massively impact on motivation if it goes the wrong way for you. What I have got into the habit of doing in recent months when trying to ‘cut’ is weighing on a daily basis and then monitoring fluctuations, then at weekly review points, looking at the weeks lowest and the week’s average. These are a far fairer representation that the numbers are going in the direction that I want them to. Too many commercial weight loss groups are toying with people’s emotions with their weekly weigh-ins that are a game of luck and can really impact motivation (and price of the next week’s SW or WW visit!). There’s also been an element of ‘well I’m weighing on Friday, ooo I lost some weight, I will reward myself over the weekend’ or ‘Ah I’ve been bad but I have a lot of days until weigh in so I can catch up for it’. Whereas with daily, there’s an element off accountability each and every morning, which certainly impacts on your choices at 8pm the night before. So, for now, daily weigh-ins that give me a fairer understanding of the fluctuations my relationship to the Earth’s gravity is the weigh forward.
- BMI: This obviously derives from weight and height, etc, but gives a (rather dated and unreliable) numerical value to your height and weight ratio. Why do I hate it so much? It really doesn’t make as much sense as other measurements as it does not take into account body shape or muscle mass. I’ve always been really broad-shouldered and had a half-decent amount of muscle on me. This negatively impacts on your BMI score. For the last few years of my life, which I feel Is unfair, I have been in the ‘obese’ category of BMI score. Fat, yes. Squidgy around the edges, yes. Obese? No. I’m pretty sure a BMI calculator used ‘Morbidly Obese’ for me previously. There’s a special group of people on this planet that this term should be saved for. I shouldn’t be classed as one of them. Again, it is a number that comes under the ‘what gets measured gets improved’ title, so I will look at these numbers over time, but I certainly won’t be giving any emotional value to them.
- Fitting of clothes: How your clothes look and feel on you as you change shape. Perhaps a numerical or alphabetical values on this. I really like this, and this has always made a big difference to me. It is quite a big indicator for me. I know when I have ‘let myself go’ a little by the fitting of my clothes. When I am back into the same 3 t-shirts that I bought 10 years ago, I know it is definitely time to change. I have a larger than average pair of chesticles, and this really impacts on how clothes fit on me. So as I get into a better shape and as I edge closer towards the magical 172lb number, I can really see improvements in the fitting of clothes.
- Photos: How you look when you have photos taken of you, whether the purposeful ‘transformation’ photos you ask your spouse to take of you, or the surprise photos taken by family members that capture every one of your chins. This haas really impacted on me over the years. I’m a little vain I suppose, but I have obsessed how I look in pictures over the years. Not in a narcissistic 6-pack influencer type of way, but more in a ‘I have 2 chins in that photo’ or ‘hmm, my moobs are really sticking out in that picture’ type of way. I know how I want to look and how I look in photos, particularly the surprise photos, gives me a good indicator of progress towards that. The ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos are good for reflection about how far you have come. Frogs in boiling water and all that, sometimes we need a reminder of how far we have already come to help motivate the journey further. Incidentally, my Google Photos account is full of ‘before’ photos that never got their ‘after’ photo, because I never got to that finishing point. However, for every 10 of those, I have 1 good ‘transformation’ photos that I am really proud of.
- Confirmation by others: Again, not a numerical value, or one that you can control, but having people point out that ‘you’ve lost some weight haven’t you?’ Or ‘I can see you’ve lost weight around your neck, act as proof to you that the processes are working. These can be hugely motivating. Particularly if I know how hard I have worked at it. Again, I’m not the 16-year-old out-on-the-pull lad that I might have been once, so I’m not caring about impressing anyone too much, but it is nice to know about what others see of you. Out and about, professionally, on the football pitch, in the gym and on the beach... How I look Impacts on what people think and what I think others see is a measure, whether they say it or whether it is just in my head. I’m not going to be fishing for compliments, but it certainly does give you a measure of progress (and a bit of a buzz) when people do notice it.
- More complex body-scale measurements: Often done through domestic electro-impedance scales, you can Give you all sorts of readings: Body Fat Percentage, Water Percentage, Muscle Percentage, etc and they even make estimates as to how old your body is, compared to your actual age. Again, like BMI I will monitor this over time and compare for progress, but won’t give it too much value. Why? Because these impedance scales (and the FitDays app mine comes with) are built on some pretty sketchy data that isn’t massively reliable. Interesting to look at, but not a lot more than that. Body Composition Scanning, completed by actual professionals (not a PT with some really unreliable fat pinching tool) are hundreds of pounds to get done and only then can you really see what your body is made up of. I don’t need that. I need a tight T-shirt that is getting looser over time.
When I get to my first reflection point (at the end of week 1) I will have a bit of a bigger dig into the numbers to far. Then we can see.
For now, 5 days in, 7lbs down. (Let’s not think too much about how much of that was just water!!)
