how to measure

tfc Guide on What to Measure, When to Measure, and How to Measure and Get the Best Before & After Photos

Do you ever feel like your scale must be lying to you? You have been working so hard at your new exercise routine and were excited at the progress you were seeing at first, but now the scale has suddenly stopped decreasing – or even begun to increase again!

Don’t worry! We’re not calling the bathroom scale a liar, but it definitely is not the smartest or best tool for tracking your progress when it comes to fat loss and muscle gains. The standard bathroom or kitchen scale is built only to read your overall weight and wouldn’t be able to tell you apart from a sack of potatoes or a bucket of water. This does not allow you to see how much of your weight is made up from fat stores, muscle stores, or water stores within the body and could paint an inaccurate picture of your health based solely on the overall weight.

The best way to combat this is by relying on other types of anthropomorphic – or body-based – measurements to analyze your health. One way to do so is to participate in a body composition assessment; a test that uses technologies such as bioelectrical currents, X-ray technology, water displacement, or other methods to determine how much of your overall weight is comprised of fat tissue, muscle tissue, organs and cells, bones, and skin. However, many of these types of assessment machines can be difficult to obtain due to their price, technology requirements, or status as certified medical devices.

Outside of having a body composition assessment performed, there is another fast, easy, and realistically cheap option for manually assessing your overall body status without relying on your weight at all; using girth measurements of specific body-landmarks. A girth measurement is simply the circumference of specific locations on your body and its limbs. Below is a list of the best landmarks to measure to track progress in both fat-loss and muscle-building exercise programs, along with the best ways and times to measure!

what to measure & why

measure…	good for…
weight	tracking overall progress
neck	good if goal is to lose over 25lbs fat or make bulk-muscle gains
chest	good if goal is to lose fat
waist	good if goal is to lose fat
hips	good if goal is to lose fat or make bulk muscle-gains
thighs	good if goal is to lose fat or make bulk muscle-gains
calves	good if goal is to lose over 25lbs fat or make bulk-muscle gains
biceps	good if goal is to lose over 25lbs fat or make bulk-muscle gains
forearms	good if goal is to lose over 25lbs fat or make bulk-muscle gains

Be careful not to make the mistake of measuring and/or weighing yourself too often; weight and body composition can easily fluctuate even throughout a single day based on what you ate and when, how you slept the night before, and what types of workouts were done within the last couple days. We recommend not weighing yourself more than 1-2 times per week and only conducting measurements once a week at the most so that you don’t end up with an overwhelming amount of data to track.

when to measure

at the beginning of your program
every 4 weeks if program is over 6-weeks or is not time-bound
every 2 weeks if program is under 6-weeks
halfway through the program
at the end of the program

Lastly, it is important to stay consistent in where and how you are measuring your body landmarks so that you can accurately compare measurements to one another to track your progress.

measure in the morning, prior to food/drink, barefoot
use flexible tape measure; for all measurements, adjust the tape to appropriate spot and lay flat, take a deep breath and slowly exhale and relax
- neck
  - place tape measure at midline between the base of the neck (where it connects to the shoulders) and the jawline
- chest
  - place tape measure under arms and around back to meet in the front of the chest and measure in a straight line at the widest area (usually around nipple-level)
- waist
  - place tape measure around the back to meet in the front of the torso and measure in a straight line at the narrowest area (usually around or just above belly-button level)
- hips
  - place tape measure around booty to meet in the front of the pelvis and measure in a straight line at the widest area (usually around or just below hip-bone level)
- thighs
  - place the foot of the same leg being measured on a step or seat so that it creates a 90 degree bend in the knee; shift your weight to bear on the leg that is not being measured
  - place the tape measure under the thigh to meet in front and measure in a straight line near the midline of the thigh (roughly equal distance from the knee and the hips)
- calves
  - place the foot of the same leg being measured on a step or seat so that it creates a 90 degree bend in the knee; shift your weight to bear on the leg that is not being measured
- place tape measure around leg to meet in the front of the shin and measure in a straight line at the widest area (usually closer to the knee)
- biceps
  - extend the arm of the same bicep being measured and hold the elbow at a 90 degree angle at shoulder height, with the hand raised above it
  - place the tape measure under the arm to meet at at the top of the bicep and flex the bicep (squeeze the hand into a fist and twist the palm of the hand towards your head)
  - measure in a straight line at the widest area (usually roughly halfway between the elbow and shoulder joints)
- forearms
  - extend the arm of the same forearm being measured and hold the elbow at a 90 degree angle at the waistline with palm facing up
  - place the tape measure under the arm to meet at at the top of the forearm and flex the forearm (squeeze the hand into a fist)
  - measure in a straight line at the widest area (usually closer to the elbow)

When it comes to tracking changes in your body composition, a picture really is worth a thousand words! Pictures help to provide context to the numbers that you are seeing to give more meaning to the data. It is also important to stay consistent in where and how the photos are captured so that they can be fairly compared to one another.

taking your photo

good lighting
simple background without a lot of visual distractions
same environment for Before & After
same clothing or type of clothing for Before & After
- bathing suit
- sports bra and shorts or underwear
  - recommended: no high-waisted or compression bottoms
- shorts and no shirt
  - recommended: short and fitted shorts; no compression bottoms
good posture
- but not “sucking in”
front view
- arms out “T”
- optional flex – encouraged for After!
side view
- arms out in front at shoulder height
back view
- arms out “T”
- optional flex – encouraged for After!

check out some of our awesome client Before & After photos here!

We recommend keeping a simple journal to track long-term progress, where you can record all of your anthropomorphic measurement data, store your photos, and make short notes indicating the harder-to-measure benefits of regular exercise; such as energy level and mood, appetite, and quality of sleep. You can also use this space to track the details of your exercise program and nutrition habits to create a robust image and log of your overall health!

Here are our tfc tried & true logs for recording measurements, exercise, and food intake – download for free and let us know your thoughts!