[Need To Know] Wellbeing Series: Lesson 3 - Mastering the Art of Accurate Health Metric Tracking

Tracking health data can be a source of anxiety for many people, but in my experience, a lot of this is due to a lack of understanding about what these measurements actually mean. The truth is, without taking measurements, you're essentially just guessing. Would you want your doctor to guess your blood pressure?

Gaining a deeper understanding of the "context" of your measurements and what to expect can help you make more informed long-term health decisions. This is because you'll have solid evidence to base your decisions on.

Like anything else, there's a right and a wrong way to assess your health. In this blog post, we'll start by discussing cover the most common (particularly this time of year)

How To Track Physique Measurements

For tracking physique based progress, you’ll need to track body measurements like your weight, body fat percentage and circumferences. The tricky bit is though, nothing moves at the same pace and depending what measurement tool you use, when you use it, and what’s going on in your body at the time, the numbers will vary and, in some cases, by the minute!

Consider your weight for example, any one of the below can cause your weight to go up or down at any given time:

• ??Your current hydration status
• ??Water retention or loss due to salt intake
• Different periods of the menstrual cycle can cause water retention and water loss
• Current carbohydrate intake, for every 1g of carbs, your body will hold ~3g of water
• A diet low in fibre can restrict bowel movements
• Your current stress load can increase water retention due to cortisol spikes

?As you can see from the above, if your goal was to lose a few pounds and any or all of the above were true to you, if you only hopped on the scales once a week, the number may not be telling the whole story. To make sure you get a better reflection, it’s best to smooth out the data.

Track Your Average Weekly Weight

Stepping on the scales daily every morning after you’ve used the toilet and taking a seven day average is by far the best way to get a true reflection of any weight changes. To illustrate the point, take a look at a full week of daily weigh in data from a previous client of mine:

As you can see, if this only jumped on the scales on Thursday morning and took that measure only, they might think that their approach isn’t working. But when you look at the AVERAGE across the week, they’ve lost weight (~0.6kg/1lb). Many voices in the industry would say, “don’t weigh yourself all”, as it causes too much stress, but the research shows that when people understand the “context” this is very useful for accountability as well as making better choices subconsciously throughout the day .?

Track Circumferences Weekly

Taking weekly circumference measurements is another very informative piece of the puzzle. When used in conjunction with weekly weigh in average, circumference measurements will help tease out muscle growth and fat loss in different areas. Waist circumferences, for example, can tell you if fat loss is trending despite no changes in weight.

To be as accurate as you can be, I suggest you purchase an automatically tightening tape (Myotape is one brand I recommend). This makes measuring easier, and the tightening of the tape will be consistent each time you do it. HERE is a good tutorial on how to take your waist circumference. To interpret what the results mean, the below progress table is something I’ve used for years to help people understand the bigger picture regarding metrics. Credit to superb researcher Alan Aragon who was the first to unveil this.

What about tracking body fat percentage?

Unfortunately, body fat estimation tools like BIA machines (Tanita scales), Callipers and Bodpods have inconsistencies and inaccuracies. For the main, they are all predicting, NOT measuring.?So, you always have a moving variable which means you’ll never be spot on. This is why using weight along with circumferences over time is a better reflection of progress as you have “measurements” to go off, not predictions. That is, of course, if you are measuring correctly.

Track Daily Wellness Areas (Sleep, Stress, Hunger and Energy)

Everything affects everything when it comes to your health. However, if you don’t have something to join the dots, it isn’t easy to uncover the root cause when it comes to challenges. Understanding how all these areas are interrelated gives you a deeper insight leading to better decision making overtime:

Sleep quality?will affect hunger levels, recovery and exercise performance, subsequently affecting your ability to retain muscle. So, if you notice that you have excessive hunger and your workouts feel like a real slog, paying more attention to your sleep and getting more of it is the most likely solution. ?

·Stress?again will impact your workout performance and can cause water retention due to cortisol – a hormone that impacts fluid balance. This can mask weight loss. So, if you’re eating in a calorie deficit but your weight hasn’t been coming down on the scales, but your stress levels are through the roof then water retention ?

Hunger?can be a sign of severe undereating for your needs (work out yours here). However, as mentioned if you have poor sleep and high stress these can impact cravings also. Regardless, looking closely and tinkering to make improvement will likely lead to improvements in other areas.?

Energy or feeling tired will also affect workout performance and mood throughout the day. This, again, could be a sign that you need to take a closer look at your energy needs. However, it could also be due to the other factors mentioned above. So, assess each, see what stands out the most, and go with that. You can always adjust based on the outcome.

To start assessing these areas, a simple 0-10 scale can be used to rate each day:

• Sleep quality??(0 = poor sleep, 10 = great sleep.)
• Stress levels?(0 = poor stress, 10 = stress load is fine.)
• Hunger/satisfaction??(0 = starving, 10 = completely satisfied.)
• Energy/Tiredness?(0 = no energy, 10 =full of energy.)

I’ll advise people on some of wellbeing course for employees to track these initially until we get all of them in the green zone (7 upwards). It really helps align how everything connects. For example, we know that poor sleep drives excessive hunger cravings and affects training performance. Noticing this trend will allow?for a more targeted approach to improve this area.

Below is an example of something I created on an excel/google sheet for when I want to take a deep dive into these areas:

Summary

Making better health choices is hard enough, but staying consistent will be much harder if you don’t have data to help steer decisions. Now at least, you know how to measure appropriately and understand what they mean.

Can you do me a favour? One of my goals this year is to get to 1000 email subscribers on this platform. If you feel this would benefit someone in your circle, sharing it would make my day.

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About the Author

Declan is a leading health and wellbeing consultant working for?Health at Work ?(Part of the?Medicash ?Group). He prides himself on being able to combine the evidence base with the practical “know how” to solve real world problems for people and organisations. When he’s not working, you’ll likely find him reading the latest research study, competing in duathlons or cleaning up the mess his youngest daughter leaves daily!