A Closer Look on Your Body Stats

I get it. Not everyone is comfortable checking the numbers concerning their body stats, especially when the figures are not in their favour. 

I mean, why will you go through all the trouble only to bring discouragement upon yourself when the scales tip over the limit, and your optimism plummets to the floor?

However, as the adage goes, when you don’t plan, failure comes easy. It’s going to be quite difficult to set goals for yourself in terms of your physical fitness if you don’t know where you are in the first place. 

Also, once you begin your exercise regimen, you will need to do some tracking to gauge your progress. This step is to know when and how to tweak your journey and thereby achieve your wellness targets.

Why monitor?

Let’s talk a bit more about why you need to watch your body metrics. This way, you’ll be all set to take that necessary first step towards your fitness goals. 

If you’ve already started, all the more reason for you to keep learning to sustain that drive to be healthy.

You can’t do a blind leap

First of all, you certainly can’t run blind in your journey. You have to determine where your body is, fitness-wise. 

Most people will make a self-evaluation based on their overall “feel” of how healthy they are and go from there. I guess there’s nothing wrong about doing this except that it’s basically still a shot in the dark, as our subjectivity oftentimes clouds the real picture. 

The perfect time to start monitoring your body stats is before you begin your wellness program. As such, you can see all the changes that will happen in your physique and inside your body as you move forward in your routine.

You can’t track what you can’t see

When you made the decision to become fit and healthy and maintain this stature throughout your life, it comes with the responsibility to make sure that you truly are walking the path towards your fitness goals. 

No one wants to waste their time in diet programs and exercise routines, only to find out in the end that it did nothing for their bodies. 

To do this, you must know where you are coming from, where you want to go and how you plan to get there. While you work hard every day to stick diligently to your program, there is definitely a need to track your progress on a regular basis. 

You want to do this to confirm that you are heading in the right direction and you are actually advancing and hitting your objectives.

You can’t improve what you can’t measure

In your fitness program, you will likely experience hiccups. This point is when you feel that you have either overexerted but feel so burned out or you failed to accomplish as much as you wanted to, and you beat yourself up for it. 

But hey, we all have good and not-so-good days. 

The best thing to do is to put in writing (digitally or otherwise) your daily goals (and you want to be as realistic as you can about this) and find a way to measure your progress throughout the day if you’re hitting them. 

In the end, you can’t “improve” in your journey if you don’t have a way of knowing if the numbers are getting better or not.

It motivates you and reinforces your journey

Let’s do away with all the cant’s now and focus on the good things. Your body stats may not be where you want them at the beginning. But think about it. That’s precisely why you decided to get into a program in the first place, right? To make changes! 

So, move past the initial discouragement that you feel and resolve to take control.

Depending on how serious you are in your fitness program, your numbers will surely improve if you are diligent and persevering. 

As your body stats get better and better, you are motivated to continue to see the results that you are aiming for.

It fosters commitment to your goals

As you see your body get healthier, your desire to stick with your program gets increasingly solidified into your lifestyle. In other words, it becomes effortless for you to do the things which you had to pull yourself to do at the beginning. 

Your glowing body stats, no matter how gradual the progress is, will be your much-needed push to keep going.

It helps in being held accountable

Finally, though this is not an exhaustive list, monitoring your body stats will keep you accountable, to yourself and to a fitness buddy. Sometimes, it’s hard to sustain the drive to pursue a healthy lifestyle. 

But if you keep a journal of where you have come from and where you are planning to go, while having somebody who encourages you along the way, you are more likely to reach your goals. 

What to look out for?

So, knowing all these, how then do you go about tracking your body stats as you get into a fitness program? 

Let me share with you some important measures that you should focus on other than the number that shows on your weighing scale every day. 

Body Mass Index

You may be quite familiar with this metric as it reflects a standard figure based on how tall and heavy you are, says the World Health Organization. It will tell you if you are at a standard weight based on your height, or you’re overweight or obese. However, some people who have the physique of an athlete may find an erroneous figure so other measures must be in place. 

Body Fat Percentage

This figure tells you how much fat you have in your body relative to your overall weight. We all know that when we go into a diet regimen or fitness routine, it’s the fat that we mostly want to get rid of. We want to bring this metric lower to improve our health in general. Knowing this number will help steer the direction and pace of your exercise program. 

Muscle Mass Percentage

How much muscle we have in our bodies inevitably declines as we get older. But, as we work out, we gain muscle mass and lose body fat as a happy consequence. If you are trying to eat healthy, and exercising regularly, this metric is one to look out for since it tells you if your efforts to be fit are effective!

Subcutaneous Fat

Your subcutaneous fat is stored in all the right places in your body like your bum and your chest, hence women have more of it. It is not as harmful compared to other fats, but it has the tendency to stay put and people who are working to get rid of it will find themselves having a difficult time. 

Visceral Fat

This fat, on the other hand, surrounds your vital organs and rests in your abdominal cavities. It is closely linked to a lot of health risks like hypertension, stroke and heart attack. 

It’s important to know how these two types of fat are distributed in your body so you can modify your health program accordingly to deal with them. 

Wrapping up

Again, your weighing scale does not tell the whole story. Monitoring your body stats include going to your doctor and having your regular check-up to know if you are A-OK and everything is running as it should. 

Remember to not shy away from this need to track your progress especially if you want to lead a healthy lifestyle and spend each day knowing that you are accomplishing your fitness goals.