Measuring Progress

Kai2008 · 01-22-2009, 02:53 PM

Hey girls! I am back again! Some of you may remember me. I used to be on here quite often, fell off the wagon over the holidays, and now I'm back on track as of Jan. I am trying to cut right now and I'm trying to figure out the best way to track my progress. I am taking measurements, pictures, and weight weekly. So, I can tell that I am making progress but I would like to be able to have a more specific way of telling exactly how much fat I've lost. I'm not quite finished my third week in ( I know it's very early, I'm not expecting miracles!) and my waist is down from 25 to 24 5/8th and each thigh is down about 1/4 of an inch. My weight, however, is actually up almost 2 pounds.

I am not expecting to see a ton of progress yet and that's not really the reason for the post but I'm just curious about how you determine how much fat you are losing when your weight remains steady. I'm terrible with calipers and I have a body fat scale but we all know that is useless. It doesn't even seem to trend downwards, it tells me my BF is up every time my weight goes up which I know isnt true because I can see that I'm leaner. Do you think my weight being up is just water weight or could it actually be from an increase in muscle? Right now, I am taking in about 1800/calories. I'm not really a newbie to lifting even though I have been off for a couple months. Any thoughts would be great. Thanks ladies!!

terracotta · 01-22-2009, 04:00 PM

Your waist and thigh measurements are going down by good numbers! Weight is irrelevant. And no, there is not an accurate way to check body fat changes yourself.

You want measuring tape changes at least every 2 weeks. Keep up what you've been doing, it is working. And stay off of the scale.

Actually if you haven't lifted for a couple months you likely lost glycogen and had to replenish it. So that could easily explain the scale change.

Kai2008 · 01-22-2009, 04:17 PM

Thanks Terracotta! I'll just keep plugging away as I have been. I think I already knew the answer but figured I'd see what everyone else had to say. I'm not worried too much about the number on the scale but since everyone says how difficult it is to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, I was curious about what else would cause the change. Congrats on the pregnancy BTW!!