Yesterday we talked about taking a bunch of measurements. Now that we have all this information, how are we going to use it? As always, this depends on our goals, but here are a few possible scenarios:
We like the direction things are going. Our weight has gone down or our circumference measurements have gone down, or both! Woot! That’s great news! If we have reached our goals, we can just carry on as we have been. If we still have a ways to go to reach our goals, we want to make sure that we keep challenging our bodies by adding weight or speed or intervals or all of the above to keep things interesting.
We don’t like the direction things are going. Bummer. We need to dig a little deeper into the data to see what the problem is, but most of the time I find that we are eating more than we think we are. Sometimes we’ve been skipping a few too many workouts or we have been doing the exact same workout for too long and our bodies have stopped adapting.
We are confused. Our weight is not budging, but our measurements have gone down. What’s up with that? Congratulations! We’ve reduced our body fat percentage! Because muscle is more dense than fat, we can build muscle, lose fat, and stay the same weight, but with a better body composition. Our metabolisms rev up because those new muscles burn more calories than the fat they replaced, so if we maintain our healthy eating, we may begin to lose pounds, too.
We are bored. Good news! It’s time to switch things up to keep our bodies adapting. If we’ve been doing lots of reps with low weights, now is a good time to do fewer reps with heavier weights (or vice versa). If we’ve been stuck in the gym on the treadmill for months, now might be a good time to take it outside and maybe even add some hills to the workout. Throwing in one longer workout a week can increase our post-exercise calorie use.
Still not sure what to do? Hey, that’s what I am for! Ask me!
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