How To Test Your Fitness Without Weighing Yourself

The benefits to regular exercise are countless – from mental health to stamina, to improved sleep.

However, all too often, the focus of promoting exercise is on weight loss – which exercises help you lose belly fat, etc.

For a lot of people, this can come with a lot of emotional complications that creates barriers to exercise and often takes away the joyful, healthy experience that exercising can be. 

Additionally, measuring the improvements in your fitness by a number on a scale isn’t exactly accurate as most exercise causes muscle build-up. Muscle is denser than fat meaning that you could end up being a higher weight as time goes on. Recent researchalso suggests that body size doesn’t necessarily correspond to health.

However, tracking your fitness improvements over time can often help to motivate continued efforts to keep going with exercise regimes. 

Set Personal Exercise Goals

Nobody knows your body and your relationship with fitness better than you do. While being accountable to only yourself can be challenging, setting fitness goals will help. Whether this is pushing to run an extra mile in a certain amount of weeks, holding a plank for seconds longer or lifting heavier weights over time - give yourself something to work towards. Once you beat that personal best, you’ll feel the impacts of your fitness improving without having to touch a scale. 

Test Your Heart Rate

Heart rate is a strong indicator of overall body fitness. Resting heart rate for healthy adults should be between 60 and 80 beats per minute but if you’re unfit, you may find that your heart rate is above this. Track your heart rate after each session and watch as it slowly improves over time. A healthy heart rate reduces your chances of heart attacks and improves overall heart health.

Be Mindful of Your Day to Day Life

Try to take the time to notice how much easier some things are for you as you increase your exercising habits. Does carrying the food shop home feel like less of a chore? Or picking up your kids? Maybe you find it easier to get up from a comfortable spot on the couch? All of these are due to your hard work! Taking note of how many more things you’re capable of doing than you were before can keep you motivated with fitness and exercise and no scales are needed!