Defining Fitness Regimen Success

Alright, so you've decided to make some changes and recognize that getting a personal trainer would help you reach your goals. Your goals are probably to lose weight, put on some muscle, look good for a wedding. (There are also strength goals, but that's another topic for another time.)

These goals are all a change in body composition. Body Composition is the measure of your various body tissues such as muscle mass, fat mass, organ tissue, and bones. Each of these affects how you appear, but most people are worried about muscle mass and fat mass -- the stuff others see and you see in the mirror, but....

After you've been working out for a while, how do you really know if you are making progress?

There are a few measureable data points you can pinpoint whether your body composition is changing and your health is improving, but the conventional ones all have flaws:

• The scale lies because you'll likely gain muscle from lifting, and muscle weighs more than fat

• Mirrors lie because the changes are so subtle overtime you don't notice.

• Pictures are somewhat helpful, but take a while for outward changes to become apparent and lots of other factors influence appearance (lighting, filters, etc)

• Clothes fitting differently isn't great either, once again, even though you put on muscle, lost fat, and feel great, your body "shape" may not change.

So how does one go about getting an accurate assessment of their body composition?

InBody Scans

With all the flaws of traditional methods, I like relying on hard data to tell whether someone's body composition is improving. I do this with an InBody Scan. An InBody Scan is an accurate measure of someone's muscle mass, fat mass, and tissue mass (ie, organs and bones).

The InBody Scan does this by sending a non-noticeable electric current through the body. Certain types of tissues transmit electricity better and the computer calculates within a few percentage points your body composition.

When my clients start, we do a scan. I like using this with new clients for several reasons. It opens their eyes to their true body composition. As stated above, other measures don't provide a clear picture. This provides a clear AND whole picture. With your body fat and muscle mass actually measured, you can see what work needs to be done to reach your goals -- whether that's gaining muscle, losing fat, or, yes, even gaining fat.

TWO WAY ACCOUNTABILITY

These measures provide accountability to all parties involved.

If a client wants to gain muscle, but lose fat, it will require work on both our parts to get it done. I can help provide the in-person coaching, analyze their habits and preferences, and give them recommendations for diet, but if they're not putting in the work, it will show on follow up scans.

Likewise, if I'm not doing a good job figuring out what lifts they're good at, putting together a program that builds their body up, this will show they're not getting the results.

Results On Paper

For instance, here a few scans from some of my clients. They started in November, had a few weeks off with the holidays and some sickness, but they still got great results -- both losing fat and gaining muscle.

They were able to do this because of the systems I've put in place through my training services. They did the 10-day habit tracker, which made them be honest about their current health habits (food, sleep, water, stress, exercise outside of the gym). Knowing this, this gave me a baseline of recommendations for them to make marginal tweaks to their health habits. These changes fit within their current lifestyle choices and aren't such drastic changes that they'd "over correct" and end up on a dieting Yo Yo.

Then they consistently executed the plan: slightly more protein intake, better snack choices, more movement throughout the day, and better sleep.

Here are their full results. Let's focus on the bottom chart that shows their previous body composition numbers and their current body composition numbers. They both gained muscle and lost fat. This is excellent work and I'm stoked for them!

CONCLUSION

When it comes to measuring success in your fitness regimen, make sure you're looking to use real hard data, not just a number on a scale, a fit of a pair of jeans, or the mirror. Measuring provides clarity of mission and purpose for you to achieve your goals and provides accountability for you AND for your trainer. If I'm lucky enough to coach you, I will deliver the results with your help!