HOW TO TRACK BODY CHANGES

written by: Nem​
Whether your goal is to lose weight, lose body fat, tone or gain muscle, it’s advisable to incorporate some form of progress tracking. Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether we are actually making any progress and often times we are not the best judge of our progress.

​Extreme examples of this would be conditions like muscle dysmorphia (constant worry of being too small) and anorexia (constant worry of not being thin or small enough), where patients have a highly distorted mental image of their body size.  

So having some kind of objective information will help you make better-informed decisions and probably give you a more realistic view of your progress.

With our TO Kinesiology clients, we’ll incorporate at least two of the following methods to track body changes:

1. Progress Pictures
2. Body Weight
3. Circumference measurements
4. Body Composition Assessment
5. Performance measurements

​Each of these methods have their pros and cons. By combining these methods together, they complement each other and gives us a complete picture of what is going on. For someone who has a lot of weight to lose (30-40+ lbs), this is not as important because the change will be faster and more obvious, but for every other case, the use of multiple progress tracking methods becomes more important.
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​PROGRESS PICTURES

​The value of the photos is their ability to show changes in a very visual and ‘real’ way. Being able to see progress over time can be very useful for motivation and gives us a more objective measurement compared to just seeing your reflection in the mirror every day.  
  
Take photos from the front, back, and sides against a plain white wall in good lighting, while being as consistent as possible with your positioning.

Make sure you wear as little as possible as this will make your shots easier to compare. For men, I would suggest wearing just underwear or shorts. For women, I would highly recommend small shorts and a cut off sports bra top.
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BODY WEIGHT

​Measure your body weight in the morning after going to the toilet. Wear little or no clothes. Bodyweight will naturally fluctuate day to day due to factors other than body fat/muscle changes so it’s important to measure yourself as often as possible and take weekly averages as opposed to relying on just one measurement. 
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CIRCUMFERENCE MEASUREMENTS

Similar to body weight measurement, try to keep the measuring conditions the same. This means doing the measurements:

- at the same time of the day (ideally in the morning after you go to the toilet), 
- performed by the same person,
- using the same tape and,
- performed on the same side of the body. 

Try to apply the same pressure when wrapping tape around the body or better yet buy constant-pressure tape like Myotape/Orbitape.

With our clients, we usually use these 8 sites, but you can adjust depending on what you are specifically trying to improve:

1. Shoulders - measured at the widest point around your shoulders. Rleaxed position and don't slouch. Avoid inhaling or exhaling excessively.
2. Chest - for men this is just above the nipple and for women measure at the widest point. Relaxed position and don't slouch. Avoid inhaling or exhaling excessively.
3. Upper Arm - measure at the widest part of your upper arm. This is usually 2/3 distance from the elbow to the shoulder. Tense your bicep/elbow flexor muscles as hard as you can while performing this measurement. 
4. Belly Button - have the measuring tape placed around the belly button circumference. Tense your muscles as hard as you can while performing the measurement and don't slouch/lean forward excessively. 
5. One inch above the belly button - same as the belly button measurement but place the tape one inch above or 1-2 fingers above the belly button. Tense your muscles as hard as you can while performing the measurement and don't slouch/lean forward excessively. 
6. One inch below belly button - same as the belly button measurement but place the tape one inch below or or 1-2 fingers below the belly button. Tense your muscles as hard as you can while performing the measurement and don't slouch/lean forward excessively. 
7. Hips/Glutes - measure around the widest part of your glutes. Look for an area on your gluteus muscles that sticks out the most. Keep muscles relaxed.
8. Thigh - Stand with your feet hip width apart. Keep arms relaxed beside the body and don't slouch/lean forward. The point where your index finger or thumb is touching your thigh is where you’ll place the tape. Make sure that the tape is parallel to the ground.

​BODY COMPOSITION ASSESSMENT

​Our body composition consists of various parts, but for our purposes, it can be roughly divided into fat tissue, protein, minerals and body water. Most of the times when we are trying to lose weight or gain muscle mass, we are not exactly sure what we are gaining or losing. If the weight scale shows a higher number than two weeks ago, is that increase in weight due to increase in fat tissue or muscle tissue or just temporary increase in body water due to higher salt intake?

There are many body composition machines available today with most of them showing completely inaccurate and unreliable results. In our practice, we use state of the art, science-backed ultrasound body composition machine which has been shown to produce the most reliable results. 

Ultrasound can accurately estimate the amount of fat and muscle tissue you are carrying and based on that the number of calories you need to consume in a day! During your health and fitness journey, we perform periodic tests to assess your current progress and decide what kind of corrections need to be made. Weight scale might show no change at all, but from the ultrasound measurements, we might clearly see that you lost body fat and gain muscle mass at the same time. This can dramatically change the further course of action.

​PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENTS

Even though it’s not a direct measure of body changes, tracking performance measurements (I.e. strength) can be used as an indirect measurement of muscle mass changes. As you get more advanced, muscle mass accrual slows down and eventually, you’ll reach a point where it can take a couple of months to see any significant muscle change. Which means you could be training for a long time not knowing whether you are gaining any muscles and making progress. 

However, if all other factors are kept the same (I.e. nutrition, sleep, stress levels, etc.) and there is an increase in strength, we can be confident that you are gaining muscle as well. And vice versa, if we are noticing that your strength is declining, that could be an indication of muscle mass loss.  

With our clients we use TO Kinesiology software and mobile app to design programs and track progress.

how to measure body fat. how to measure waist circumference