This is for Hidden or for anyone else planning to track their progress by their waist measurement. I developed this entirely on my own, so please shoot it down.
The principle here is not to find your absolute waist measurement, but to record a consistent number that you can compare week to week.
1) Make the measurement at the same time of day under similar circumstances. I suggest first thing in the morning, after ablutions, before any drink. Waist measurement is slow moving, once a week is more than enough.
2) Stand upright, shoulders back - like your nan told you to. Suck in everything and breathe in. Wrap the tape around your middle (more on this later) then breathe out, relaxing as much as you can, while still standing tall, let the tape expand as you relax. The point is to create a reproducible posture that you can do reliably every week. Check a mirror if you can to make sure the tape isn't digging in.
Yeah, that's it. You want a measurement that's reliable week after week, so you can see drop or growth. This seems to give me a consistent measure.
Where to place the tape? If you still have a natural waist (a skinnier bit than your chest or hips), then use that. It's as good as any other measure. If you don't, then I think you should measure around your umbilicus - belly button - using a mirror to check the tape is parallel to the ground - because that's going to be the same every week.
The important thing is having a consistent number week to week, because different ways of measuring can produce wildly different results. The belly button isn't exactly on the waist, but you can easily find it each week, and if you go from not having a waist to having one, enjoy the centimetres bonus you get from moving the tape up a few millimetres when your waist reappears.
This is what I have been using for a few weeks to track my waist. It may be different from my official waist measurement, but that feels unimportant. What's important is it's consistent from week to week. Um, at least I think it is. I welcome alternative or more precise ways of tracking waist measurements for those that don't need to track weight - yeah, but I will use them too!
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Subtle_badger
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Fat loss (not "weight loss") is the goal, and most people want to see it disappear from their belly. If you see your waist measurement changing, then your diet is working. If you don't, then it isn't, and you need to do something different.
To be honest, though, you should be able to see fat loss in the mirror if you diet is working effectively. It's too easy to fool yourself with the scales ("oooh, I lost 1b!", "oh, I gained 1lb, ah well, doesn't really matter").
Fat loss in the mirror? Well, yes and no, I guess. I can see 10cm in the mirror, but one or two? Probably not. By the time I can tell in the mirror it's been weeks or months, which would be bad if I was going in the wrong direction! And even then, do I remember what I looked like a month ago? When I compare selfies, I can see the difference but I am not sure my memory is as reliable. I could take regular selfies, but a tape measure is just as easy, and less embarrassing if my phone falls into the wrong hands.
And I suspect most of us aren't entirely honest when we look in the mirror. One day I see how I have improved (damn girl!) but the next day, I see how far I have to go and the same body looks fat to me. I'm a little over halfway to my goal.
Now I am confused: are you suggesting I wouldn't know I had lost weight if I didn't have a tape measure? 😂
It's a metric, one that is easy to take and easy to share and is biomarker of improved health. I think it's useful. I'm not doing this to become a supermodel. That ship has sailed.
I agree - it's probably more useful than weighing.
I'm just saying the average person should be able to gauge quite reliably whether their diet is working by doing nothing at all except looking in the mirror. Or more precisely: I'm saying that if your reflection doesn't start looking different within a month, you're doing something wrong.
I can see that I have lost weight from the front of my torso & abdomen since I started LCHF at the beginning of January. It’s not even THAT much weight according to the scales. I have better cheekbones too. The only thing is that this changed shape makes my ar$e look even more enormous by comparison...
I'm also measuring my - ahem - hips. The app I am using doesn't have a slot for hips, so I am using "Mood" as a substitute, so basically I am wrapping tape measure around my arse to find out my mood. 🍑
It's dropping too, but lagging my waist. Which is good. I happy to lose more visceral fat than subcutaneous.
My ‘changed shape’ has revealed that the current issue is less my ar$e than my giant saddlebags... have just measured around my thighs to help track progress in that department...
TIme for some tough love. You are at 21% body fat, that's close to the lowest recommended for non athletes. It's time to stop trying to lose weight. Dieting to get rid of every patch of visible fat is unhealthy and probably unproductive and is an eating disorder. Also, if your body really likes holding emergency fat on your thighs, it's more than possible you will start catabolising your muscles while those fat stores stay for whatever emergency your body is preparing for.
You are 21% body fat, yet you look in the mirror and you don't see your flat stomach, slim hips, Kylie arse etc etc, you zero on the one place on your body you are storing visible fat. Yeah, your mother is to blame. I am as certain that I can be that you look great, that if you saw someone on the beach with your exact body you would just think she looks fabulous. But when you look in the mirror at your body, you see through your mother's eyes, judging your body by her broken beauty standards.
Those annoying little repositories that of fat? There are only a few things to do about them. You almost certainly can't diet them away,,, and even if you could it would be severe unsustainable diet, and they would reappear the second you let your guard down and put on a kilo or 2.
No, you have to
1) realise the "saddlebags" are nothing, and you are the only person who sees them.
2) learn to love them.
3) learn to accept them (aka learn to live with them).
You’re right. (Always. How do you do it?!) But I could do with a bit of toning up. That’s what I shall focus on. BUT I am not dieting, I am getting my metabolic hormones in balance & trying to stave off early onset arthritis, through low carb food and a lot of double cream. Love you Badger. Thank you.
• in reply to
Also... isn’t the healthy weight/body fat where my body stabilises? That’s how I was led to believe LCHF worked. If I keep eating the cream and stay the same, then I am there, but if I lose a few more pounds, then that’s my body’s choice?
That's the theory. But measuring and recording your thighs seems a bit obsessive if you are letting your body find it's on set point.
The whole concept of "problem areas" of the body is a nasty women's magazine trope, designed to keep us dissatisfied and buying whatever crap they tell us will fix it.
As for setpoint, S11m varies his practices to keep at a weight he is happy with. So not everyone let's their body pick the setpoint.
It’s alright. You’ve already talked be down from my mad ledge. I won’t be measuring my thighs. I’m just going to keep eating cream, not eating haribo & see what happens.
For myself, I find s11m’s fasting quite alarming, but he can make his own decisions about that.
I'm using the Scrub Top theorem..... I have different size scrub tops from Large (3 years ago) to Super Size now, that's Super Gut size not Super Nurse size 😉.... I'm hoping what goes up, must eventually go down.... I'm weighing of course but this will give me another indicator, I tried to measure my waist but I couldn't really find it.... I'm being serious, I have okay legs but am quite rotund, ewww all that visceral fat oozing around my organs. 😵
I started with a waist of 105cms in December 2017 measured round my navel.
Hey, badger, I only just found this post, and you tagged me in it. For some reason, I missed a message that you'd tagged me, so wasn't being rude and ignoring you. Great tips on how to measure, there. I measure on the same day I weigh, in the morning after I've been for a - well, to the bathroom
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Getting the measure of me
where are you all on your 12 week journey?
1 stone 8lbs lost so far!
Reducing waist to height ratio
