Non-Scale Victories & Forms of Progress To Celebrate

As a Personal Trainer, with all clients you set goals to strive towards. Often these goals are attached to some sort of measurement or statistic that you can track and monitor. When I first started the common things I tracked were: weight, body measurements, and various exercise-specific strength increases – to name a few. 5 years later, there are now many other forms of progress that I recognize and emphasize with clients.

I’ve listed a bunch of form of progress in an infographic I created towards the bottom of this post, but I want to specifically unpack three forms:

1. Maintaining

This means maintaining where you’re at, be it your weight, physical or mental health, or eating healthy with more focus on food quality and not calories.

I had a discussion with a client recently about if they had any New Year goals that I could help them with. I was really happy of their response (paraphrased): “I have so much going on in my life right now, I just want to maintain where I’m at.” Many people indicate lack of forward progress as lack of progress, this is not true.

Focusing on good habits and self care while maintaining where you are is still a form of progress

It’s really easy to get caught up comparing yourself to others and their successes. Especially in today’s social media inundated world where people are mostly sharing their highlight reels and not their misfortunes; unless your name is Karen and you’re unhappy about something and need the world to know. As the common saying goes, comparing yourself to others is the thief of joy. People are not fighting the same battle as you, you are the only person you should be comparing yourself to.

Let’s unpack this a little further. With weight loss what you need to do In order to lose weight is not easy. Fundamentally you need to create a caloric deficit, usually done by being more active and consuming less food (calories). This is a lot easier said than done and doing both can take a lot of time, energy (mental and physical), and money (gym memberships, proper workout gear, and possibly hiring a Personal Trainer or Coach). If you’re in a season / time in your life where you are extremely busy and/or stressed, it might not be the best time to pursue fat loss. And, that’s ok. Simply focusing on keeping yourself healthy and doing what you can to maintain where you are is still a very admirable goal and form of progress; doing an aggressive weight loss program while being busy/stressed might leave you spinning your wheels a little.

• Related blog post: How Does Lack Of Sleep And Stress Affect Weight Loss?

I’m not saying you can’t lose weight while you’re busy/stressed, you can but it’s often not ideal and it is ok to focus on simply maintaining where you’re at.

2. A Noted Positive Change In Your Relationship With Food

This can mean many things, but it could mean:

• You are no longer label foods as Good/Bad, Clean/Dirty, Healthy/Unhealthy. Rather you understand that different foods will help you achieve different goals, eg. cookie’s and donuts, while being very tasty, are not the best option to consume regularly while wanting to focus on weight loss.
• You aren’t obsessive about food, you understand that consistency is more important than perfection, and you don’t guilt yourself when you inevitably eat/drink something that isn’t in-line with helping you reach your goal.
• If you’re an emotional eater, you’re emotionally eating less and finding healthy alternatives – going for a walk, calling a friend, etc.

The above are just a few ways to note an improved relationship with food. I also want to state that if you have disordered eating or an eating disorder you should work with a Registered Dietitian. Message us and we’ll put you in touch with one.

3. Consistency

Being consistent with things like healthy habits and doing things regularly that will help you reach your goal are a demonstration of commitment and is a form of progress you should celebrate. Here are a few examples:

1. You’ve stuck to doing at least 2 workouts per week for the past 6 weeks.
2. In the past month, you’ve consistently eaten 1/2 plate of vegetables for at least one meal of the day.
3. Milestones, celebrate them whether it’s your 10th workout or something outstanding like your 500th workout (see below)!

If you start small and work on creating healthy habits, on-going consistency will have an additive effect and you’ll be able to tackle large goals with relative ease – all of which is progress.

For any of you out there feeling “stuck” hopefully the above has helped you redefine what progress is; cut yourself some slack, you’re doing great! At the very least I hope that some of these forms of progress are now more recognizable.

Also, it goes without saying that I’m always happy to help any of you achieve progress – whichever definition that is for you. Feel free to message me here.

Till next time,

-Mike