Upscale, downscale

Measuring your success can be done in many ways. Depending on what you are chasing as a goal you can measure with personal bests, goal achievements and of course the oldie but goodie, scales and body fat measurements.

But if you are so inclined to measure yourself upon the scale, be warned!!! There are some inherent issues with doing this and if you know some of the pitfalls you can avoid disappointment and also avoid false results.

Firstly, if you have an old set of scale that you think might be out of calibration, go buy some new ones. You can get new scales from as little as $20 or even $50 to $60 dollars can get you one with other fruit on it like body fat % and bone mass etc.

Secondly, use only one set of scales for results and recordings. Soooo, if you have been weighed in at your gym for appraisals or by a personal trainer, put your scales away and ONLY use theirs. Using multiple scales can skew your perception of weight and results. I use my own scales as I’m a self-measurer and just today I tested the theory by using the scales at the gym. My results that I had taken the night before changed from 83.6kg and 19.2% BF to 84.4kg and 11.2% body fat. Now I know you burn calories in your sleep but that amount of body fat in one night’s sleep is inconceivable. The real story, different levels of body fat calculation from machine to machine. The weight stayed similar but this could also be due to varying percentages of accuracy that each digital scale can provide.

Thirdly, try and record yourself less times in a week. I currently measure every two days, some even measure weekly. What this does is takes away the obsessive day to day small results which can get you down and hopefully turns them into a larger result of change, which will make you feel better about what you are doing. Sometimes looking at the bigger picture can help, what sounds better in your head, “hmm I’ve only lost 100grams (when measured daily)” or “wow I lost a whole Kilo!(when measured at the end of the week)?

Fourthly, take photos of yourself to keep a visual. Sometimes you may only loose a few kilo’s by the scale but your body shape may have changed dramatically. When I looked at my pictures in between, from 15 days apart, I was amazed at the difference. So just because you aren’t dropping to your goal weight in a week doesn’t mean you are not already starting to look like the body that you are aiming for and the hard work is paying off.

And lastly, don’t beat yourself up if you slip up. No one said reaching your goal would be easy. If you find your results plateauing or moving in the wrong direction. Don’t sulk and give up. Use the data to see how you can change what you ARE doing to start the results back into the right direction.

You CAN change your body with time and effort and you will become better for it both for your health and your own self confidence.