How To Measure Your Weight Loss Like the Pros

Quite often I see people freaking out because in spite of doing all of the right things, the number on the scale came out higher than expected.

I wanted to give you some quick advice that can really help you track how you're progressing at your fat loss goals while also improving your relationship with the scale.

It's important to remember that weight loss doesn't always equal fat loss and weight gain doesn't always mean fat gain. Your daily bodyweight constantly fluctuates within a few pounds for various reasons.

There are a few factors besides body fat that can cause your weight to change overnight, including: water-retention, muscle glycogen levels, how recently you ate your last meal, and the weight of the undigested food you ate in the last 72 hours.

Most people tend to weigh themselves once or twice per week at inconsistent times of the day. If you're measuring your progress that way, it can get really confusing and inaccurate for the above reasons because you may only end up weighing yourself on an unusually high or low day (or time of the day) and end up with a lot of "noisy" data.

For example, you may have done everything right for a week and lost some fat but because you weighed yourself after eating an unusually saltier meal than normal (which can cause you to temporarily retain extra water), it might appear like you made no progress that week.

For the above reasons, the more data points you have and the more accurate and consistent their conditions, the easier it is to make well-informed adjustments to your training and nutrition.

For that reason, I like comparing my clients' 7-day weight averages rather than individual weighings.

Here's how many of the top weight loss experts track progress

1. Weigh yourself without clothes, first thing every morning, right after waking up and going to the bathroom.

2. Add up all of your daily weights at the end of the week.

3. Divide the total amount of daily weight by 7 days to get a weekly average. Round off the result to one decimal point.

eg. If your total daily weight for the week was 1350lbs, divide that by 7 (1350 ÷ 7 = 192.9). Your weekly average is 192.9lbs

4. Compare your weekly averages to determine your rate of weight loss.

**Note: if you're not a math person there is also a smartphone app named Happy Scale which just asks you to input your daily weight and does all the math for you.

It’s also worth mentioning that the scale is just one of various tools which should be used to gauge progress. Body measurements and progress photos should be used in conjunction with weight measurements. Women may do better with 2-4 week averages in order to make up for water fluctuations across their menstrual cycle.

Talk soon,

Marco