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    How to Keep Track of Your Weight Loss Journey

    If you’ve recently decided to take the leap and work on your weight, congratulations! It takes a whole lot of enthusiasm, dedication, and follow-through to reach your fitness goals and get in shape. While motivation is sure to keep you going, the results you notice as you advance will encourage you to complete your journey successfully.

    In that spirit, here are some useful tips that will enable you to monitor your weight loss progress and help you keep your eyes on the prize.

    Keep a Food Journal

    Losing weight inevitably involves reaching a calorie deficit for the duration of your diet. Simply put, you must burn more calories than you consume in order to lose weight. Depending on their metabolism, this may prove rather easy for some, but extremely challenging for others.

    In any case, a surefire way to motivate yourself and check your progress is to keep a detailed food diary. Once you’ve figured out the ideal caloric intake for your weight loss goals, write down everything you eat and drink for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks.

    Use a Fitness App

    Over the past few years, the appearance of online fitness platforms has encouraged millions of people to get active and in shape. A convenient and intuitive website can do wonders to help you reach your target weight with customized training routines, nutrition plans, and tons of useful tips for a well-rounded experience.

    Always be sure to find a platform that you can personalize to match your needs, one that will allow you to become fit at your own pace. Rushing or aiming too high will set you back plenty, so advance at your rhythm!

    Weight in and Take Your Body Measurements

    Few things will enable you to track your progress in real time as accurately as hopping on the scale. When you do this periodically, you can see how far along you are from your ultimate objective.

    It’s important to give yourself time, though; weighing in every few hours won’t help you lose weight faster. In parallel, take your body measurements including your mid-biceps, chest, waist, hips, and legs; once a week will do. Likewise, calculating your BMI (Body Mass Index) and measuring your body fat percentage will be reliable indicators of your progress.

    Check Yourself in the Mirror

    While this cannot be relied upon alone, checking yourself in the mirror can be a nice way to observe your progress first-hand. Remember that not everyone will be able to see their reflection accurately.

    For that reason, it’s important to combine this with other tracking methods listed here. If you’re self-conscious about being overweight (don’t be, you’re working hard!), you may avoid this step altogether. However, it can serve to help overcome your anxieties.

    Take Photos

    These aren’t meant to be published on your social media profiles, of course. Taking mirror selfies or asking a fitness buddy to photograph you every week at the end of your gym session can be a great boost and a superb way to monitor your progress.

    Do one shot with your body facing forward with your arms raised, and another one sideways, just like you see in before-and-after transformations. Make sure you’re natural and relaxed for optimal results.

    See How you Fit in Old Clothes

    Sometimes, it’s as simple as that. Provided that your clothes did fit you in the first place, you can choose a pair of jeans or a T-shirt from before you started following a fitness plan to be your reference garment.

    As you advance throughout your weight loss journey, put them on every once in a while to see how they fit you now; if they feel looser, you’re on the right track!

    Ask for Your Friends’ and Family’s Feedback

    Last but not least, ask your partner, sibling, or BFF to be your monitoring ally. Successfully achieving your target weight can hardly be done without the love and support of your loved ones; they can indeed be all the motivation we need.

    That said, stay away from those who are insincere, patronizing, or plainly oblivious. Once you’re confident that you’ve lost a few pounds, ask your support group for their honest feedback. If you’ve done a great job, you won’t even need to ask, they’ll tell you themselves!

    At the end of the day, working on your weight is a brave and commendable endeavor. Especially if you’ve struggled with being overweight for a while, once you begin the journey, it’s imperative to keep track of your progress.

    Not only will this provide a feeling of satisfaction and pride, but it will also push you to see your objectives through. So, go ahead and experiment with different monitoring methods, and choose the one you feel is best for you.

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