Tracking The Progress Of Your Daily Weight Loss Plan

     Now that your food is on track, you're working out, how are you measuring your progress? If you don't know whether the program is working, you're likely to lose motivation. There are five major factors that help you tell whether your daily weight loss plan is working correctly.

1) Changes in body weight: It seems strange to say, but the scale isn't the best reader of change.

Your body composition is changing, and the scale just doesn't pick up on that. If you're dropping fat and gaining muscle, your weight will barely waiver.

But the scale is listed because it can be helpful. Generally, the goal is to lose body fat as part of the daily weight loss plan, and that will make the scale numbers change. There are a couple guidelines to follow when stepping on the scale.

First, make sure to step on the same scale each time. Second, step on the scale at the same time of the day each time. Your weight can fluctuate by quite a few pounds depending on food/water intake.

2) Changes in body fat percentage, and 3) Changes in lean muscle mass. Determining these two factors should be the main goal of your daily weight loss plan.

In the end, it matters most that you lose body fat and gain muscle mass. It's difficult to get an accurate measurement, though.

For most, the "skin-fold measurements" method work well enough. Most of your body fat is located right underneath the skin. By pinching the skin with calipers, you can get a relatively reliable reading.

Getting the most accurate count isn't really the most important thing, though. To see if the measurements are changing over time, you have to pinch the skin the same way each time as part of your daily weight loss plan.

Once you've gotten this number, there's a mathematical formula to easily determine lean muscle mass. Lean muscle mass is defined as any type of body weight that's not fat, such as bone, water, or muscle.

To get lean muscle mass, take your weight in pounds and multiply it by your body fat percentage. This gives you your fat mass in pounds. Then, subtract your fat mass from your body weight. The resulting number is your lean body mass in pound.

One example is a person with 20 percent body fat who weighs 180 pounds.
180 x.20 = 40
180-40 = 140

This person has 40 pounds of fat mass and 140 pounds of lean body mass. About once a week is a good rate for measurements. Any more frequently than that, and you'll risk getting obsessed. Do it less than that, and you won't be doing as good of a job keeping track.

4) Changes in body part measurements. Take a tape measure and start measure your body.

If you're losing weight, the numbers will get smaller. You can measure your waist, chest, hips, thigh and upper arm. If you want detailed readings, include your forearm, calf and neck, though it probably won't show much of a change from week to week.

The morning is the best time to measure, before you work out.

5) Changes in appearance. Let's be honest, this is what we're usually looking for.

Stand in front a mirror and you can see the changes. When it comes to the reliability scale, this is probably on the bottom end. But you can visually see from where you're losing the weight You can also take before and after pictures every couple weeks.

When you look at yourself every single day, you probably won't see a big difference. But put two pictures side by side, taken two weeks apart, and you'll see a difference.

If you track your daily weight loss plan with these five factors, it will give you a good indicator of how you're doing. You can make adjustments, if necessary, and increase your motivation and sense of accomplishment.

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