Measuring progress - my wardrobe and my cat

Clawsal

Hello,

So here are two of my ways of measuring progress

1- Wardrobe

Like many of you I suppose, I slowly gained weight and I have clothes in different sizes that no longer fit. After cleaning my wardrobe a few months ago, I kept 6 pairs of jeans/trousers that fit my current weight and 13 pairs of jeans/trousers/shorts that no longer fit but that I would like to wear again.

Today I hit the -4kg benchmark (every kilogram is a benchmark for me ahah), which amounts to 6% of my body weight. So I decided to try all 13 pairs of pants and... I can squeeze into some of them (yay!) and one pair actually fits nicely so I am wearing them tomorrow! I also have a skirt that fits but I need confirmation before wearing it in public . So the score is now 8 to 11 (instead of 6 to 13).

In my mind I now have a timeline. By the end of March I expect to fit into 5 more of those pants (I can wear them now but they are snug and thus disgraceful).

Who knows, maybe one day those clothes will actually be too big for me

2 - My cat!

I have a cat that is 4.5 kg. So in just 0.5 kg I will be able to tell myself that I lost the body mass equal to that of my cat. It may sound silly (and not accurate) but it's a nice visualization... My cat is pretty big

How do you measure your progress and keep yourself motivated?

By the way, I sadly see no difference in the mirror. However two different people who don't know I am trying to lose weight commented on my weight loss. I guess our minds are the last to catch up.

Liftng4Lis

At first it was clothes, but now I measure my progress by how much I can lift

Clawsal

I am trying to work up the courage to start lifting because I am so jealous of you lifters that have super nice bodies at my BMI and eat a ton of calories and still lose/maintain... But I am not quite there yet, motivation wise.

Francl27

I just love your cat. Regarding lifting, it's tough for me too because I don't enjoy it at all, but my motivation for exercising was to be able to eat more, lol.

Honestly I just measured progress by what the scale said, I kept the same clothes for a very long time, as I had nothing else.

Mediocrates55

I do the cat thing. I've lost more than my 6 year old weighs, almost ten five-pound packages of ground beef, six of the eight pound packs of chicken breasts we buy, or over two 24 packs of pop. It's a great tool for me. LOL!

berlynnwall

Absolutely. I gained weight over the last year. When I got out my winter coat in October, I could barely zip it over my stomach. Now I can zip it freely, and I have plenty of room to move around without fear of ripping it haha. I don't care as much what the scale says, I like those visible results!

morrskie

Cat-measuring sounds like a great idea! I have a cat and some dogs, so I should find out their weights and use them as milestones I've lost around 2 stone in the last year and I don't see any difference in the mirror, but I think clothes are a quite reliable indicator - some jeans I couldn't even squeeze into this time last year are now too big, and I found some t-shirts that I haven't been able to wear since I was 12!

(But seriously, I'm stealing your animal-reference idea )

lovematthewchristopher

Hi! I think alot of us are in the same boat. I too, looked in the mirror and didnt see a difference in my reflection. It has only been recently that i can somewhat see that i have lost some weight. I think it takes awhile for the brain to catch up to the body. I see it in the numbers on the scale, and mostly, i see it in the clothes and how they fit me now. Clothes that were tight on me, that i was getting ready to give away, now float on me. I had already gone through all my stuff, thinking that i would never be that size again, and given it all away.So, if i lose any more weight, i will be taking myself on a nice reward shopping trip to get me some new threads.

lemon629

LOL. That's funny. I've lost 1.5 cats (my cat weighs around 12 pounds-- yes he's kind of big) and I want to lose one more, maybe one and a half.

I have two pairs of pants I periodically check. They should fit after losing one more cat, maybe sooner because they sort of fit now, but like you said, they are disgracefully snug.

Wiseandcurious

I do both wardrobe and weight (in my case not cats but adjustable dumbbell plates).

I also do rings - my rings span the whole range of my weight from teenager to today, so that's a fun and enjoyable way to track progress as I get to wear them again, one by one.