Evaluating Fitness-The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Part II)

Part I of this series focused on why your weight is not the best way to gauge your fitness progress. I outlined five beneficial ways to monitor your fitness; including the use of body composition analysis machines. That was the first of five monitoring methods listed. Part II will now outline numbers two through five.

2. Heart rate monitoring. This can be used to determine if you are working in your target heart rate zone, as well as assessing your recovery heart rate. Knowing this information can allow you to work smarter; by letting you know if need to push harder or cool down.

You can take the information provided to make real-time choices concerning your exercise intensity and time. It also allows you to see if you are making progress in your endurance and stamina, by allowing you to monitor your heart rate recovery time. As your heart and lung function improves you will see a corresponding shortening in your heart rate recovery time post exercise.

For this method you can purchase a basic heart rate monitor for convenience, or simply take your pulse regularly during exercise and directly after it. Checking your heart rate at two and five minutes post exercise, is a great place to start.

3. Using pedometer and timed distances. Pedometers are devises that track the number of steps you take. The recommendation for good health is 10,000 steps a day. By knowing how many steps you take, you can begin to track your progress and add more steps daily until you reach your goal. Without this information you only guess at how active you are.

Timing your distance is another way to add intensity to your walks. By having a goal time you stay on track and ensure that you will work-out at a healthy intensity. The challenge to beat your own time is another helpful incentive. This allows you to see if you are improving your speed and endurance.

4. Waist to hip ratio and taking your measurements. The hip to waist ratio is a good measure because the calculation works with your body shape and bone structure, not simply an arbitrary number. Knowing where your body carries fat is important in understanding your risk factors for various diseases.

People who carry their fat in the abdominal region (apple-shaped) have greater health risks than those who carry fat primarily in the hips and thighs (pear shaped). This type of visceral fat storage surrounds the vital organs and too much of it causes havoc in your body.

Because of the health implications, regardless of your shape or size, the standard for women is a waist size less than 35 inches and for men it is less than 40 inches. To do the ratio calculation, you divide your waist size by your hip size. For women a result less than 0.8 is desirable, and for men less than 1.0 is desirable.

Taking your full-body measurements will provide more information than weight alone. You can see various areas that are slimming as a result of your efforts because muscle takes up less space than fat. However, since muscle weights more than fat, the scale can mask real progress when it comes to shaping and toning.

5. Continuous body-monitoring products such as the BodyBugg or fitbit. These are comfortable and convenient, allowing you to measure physical activity and calories burned with a high level of accuracy. Different from the pedometer, these are lifestyle and calorie management systems.

These devises have sensors that gather information and measure the calories you are burning. The devise is uploaded to your computer and saved in an online profile. When you login, you are able to see exactly how many calories you burn. It keeps a running total, making you aware of the number of calories you have burned for the day, along with your number of steps.

You will see how many calories you need to burn to counteract your calorie intake. You get instant feedback on the results of your choices. Most people know what to do, but because they don't see the immediate benefit of doing it, they choose not to. The monitoring methods discussed in part I and II provide instant feedback which can make your weight loss and fitness efforts more tangible. You can stay on track without wondering if what you are doing is working or not.

If you struggle with weight loss, give one or more of these methods a try, and see how different your weight loss experience can be. Learning new ways to monitor fitness is just the start. Choosing a realistic goal and a plan to achieve it is the other. Start today by changing your thinking about monitoring and you will begin to see improved results that will keep you encouraged.