Getting Started

So, you've decided you want to change something about your physical self. Now what?

Follow my step by step guide to goal setting and management.

It doesn't matter what your goal is; whether it be lose, gain or maintain weight, improve a personal best, run for longer, lift more; keeping a diary of the changes in your body is essential for performance analysis. I recommend logging all the food you eat and it's weight/serving size/how much - if you can attach any particular emotions, feelings or cravings at the particular time, log it down. Don't use this at the time to make you change the fact you are about to eat it. It will be more useful for your analysis if you just do what you would and then log it.

Tools required:

A tape measure - soft

A set of decent bathroom scales - I recommend electronic scales which can weigh in metric and imperial. 

A diary - electronic, online such as www.myfitnesspal.com or even your own personal hard copy.

Set of decent kitchen scales - I recommend electonic ones - Salter make a decent one for about £10 which measures up to 3Kg - you shouldn't ever need to weigh more than that.

A stopwatch - on your phone, on your watch - any will do.

A calculator - on your phone, a proper one - arithmetic!

Optional tools:

A smartphone - a variety of Apps are available to help you track your progress or assist with training. I use myfitnesspal, Nike+, Nike + GPS amongst others.

A heartrate monitor - personal recommendation is a "Polar" one as they tend to be very accurate as most reduce any intereference signals and they tend to be compatible with most gym equipment.

Now you have all that, it's time to do something with them!

Firstly - your weight. Don't be shy!

Set your bathroom scales up so they are on a flat, hard, even/level surface. Turn on the scales and allow them to "Zero" - step on the scales weight a moment for the digits to settle and then record the weight.

Top tip: Weigh yourself just once a week at the same time - for morale I weigh myself on Friday mornings as I've been committed with my plans from the Sunday morning through to Friday. I allow myself to have any "indulgences" on Friday night/Saturday morning as this is when I'm most likely to socialise and not have much control over what I eat/drink. Weighing yourself too many times and at different times, will give an untrue picture of your real weight as your body naturally fluctuates throughout the day from eating food, drinking, exercising etc.

Next - body measurements.

It's good to do all these measurements once every 2-4 weeks but I would definitely take your waist measurement once a week when you're doing your weight as you may bot lose any physical weight on the scales but you could have lost/gained fat/muscle which will be evident in your measurements. The tape measure should fit snugly but not pinch the skin! If you can, get a friend, partner or family member to help you take the measurements to make sure its done accurately and you don't "cheat". If you don't have any one available at the time, do it in front of a mirror so you can see if you're being accurate.

Starting from the top:

Neck; measure the narrowest part of your neck at the bottom with the tape measure slightly tapering dowwards at the front.

Bicep; Measure your biceps at the widest part.

Forearm; measure the widest part of your arm below to but as close to the elbow joint.

Wrist; measure around your wrist joint.

Waist - women; Ladies, you'll need to take 2 measurements. Firstly take the measurement of the narrowest circumference of your abdomen. Secondly take the measurement of your waist around the navel. DO NOT allow the skin to pinch. 

Waist - men; take the measurement around your waist around your navel.

Hips - women ONLY; Ladies take the measurement around your HIPS at the widest point - this should be near the top of your leg just where your torso starts, NOT around your lower abdomen.

You can also take thigh and knee measurements although I believe these to be a bit useless unless you're going for a hypotrophy type programme and want to monitor this. They don't really contribute that much to gaining a body fat percentage analysis. 

Finally, we're going to look at our resting heart rate. There are a number of ways to do this. A nice simple one is to count the number of pulses you feel in your wrist for about 15 seconds and multiplying it by 4. Use two fingers at the undeside of your wrist and establish a definite heartbeat before you start counting. However you can use a Heart Rate (HR) monitor too.

To take your RESTING heart rate, make sure you have been inactive for a short period of time (i.e. not straight after exercising/housework etc!) relax yourself and sit calmly reathing deeply.

We'll look at what all this means in another post and talk about Maximum Heart Rate, Heart Rate Reserve and Training Heart Rates. We'll also talk factors that can and will affect your Heart Rate.

Once you have taken all the measurements, make sure you have logged them all and then we can start doing something with all of this!

Happy Starts!

Next blog... calculating RHR, MHR, THR from your age and Resting Heart Rate.