For most of us, the only gauge of progress towards fitness is how much we weigh. Slave to the scale we are, agonizing over every pound lost (or not lost!). This is probably the worst thing you could focus on, not just for morale but because it’s not very accurate.

“But my scale is very accurate! I tested it and it’s calibrated and everything!” That’s not the accuracy I mean here, how do you know that when it says you lost 2 pounds last week (which we all know is the right amount of weight to lose in a week) that it’s 2 pounds of fat? What if it was muscle? What if it was water? Perhaps you had a high colonic and dropped 5 pounds… You can see how it’s not a very accurate measure of your progress.

Let’s put this in perspective, I was at looking at my driver’s license photo the other day. The picture is 3 years old. In this picture I had no chin, looks like my cheeks are packed with marshmallows and I look chubby for sure. I flip it over and check my weight and am shocked to see that I am almost 20 pounds LIGHTER then I am now. That’s right, I am at this moment 20 pounds heavier then in this fat picture. Why is that shocking? Well maybe because of my body composition and performance.

My body fat is low enough that I have visible abs (not shredded 6-pack but visible), I have doubled (or better) my barbell lifts, taken several minutes off my 5 km run and mile run times. Not to mention being able to do pull-ups, muscle-ups and all sorts of gymnastic and body weight maneuvers, when I was nowhere near able to in my “lighter” days. Putting on 20 pounds should have caused me to spiral into a Dairy Queen fueled funk no?

Well to be honest I didn’t notice any weight gain or weight loss, all I focused on was getting stronger, faster, more power, eating clean and having fun! The only time body weight comes up with my athletes is when we are figuring out how many times bodyweight our latest personal record deadlift, back squat, press, weighted pull-up, etc, is.

I really wish the focus could shift from exercising to get down to a certain “ideal weight” or to create a certain esthetic, and focus on performing better, feeling better and ultimately just plain old being FIT. If you achieve those goals you will wind up looking better, but that is a side-effect of being strong and fast, not the goal in and of itself.

So please, stop compulsively weighing yourself, and start keeping a log of your performances in your workouts. If you’re a runner then keep track of your run times at various distances and keep track of performance increases, if you lift keep track of how much you lift and aim to increase the load every time. As long as you’re seeing progress in the performance of your endeavors and your pants fit better (or not at all due to being too big now) who gives a crap what you weigh?

Here’s a little workout you can use now, and then do it again in a couple months to see if you’re improving your performance. Find something about a foot or so high. On one side you do pushups, on the other side you do air squats. One round consists of 15 push-ups (chest to deck, lock arms at the top); jump sideways over your 1-foot barrier side to side 15 times (going over 1 way is 1 rep). Now you’re on the squat side so do 15 squats (full squats below parallel), jump side to side over your barrier 15 more times to get back to the push-up side. Do 3 rounds of this and record how long it took to do it all. Rest as needed but the clock keeps running until you’re done. Do this test again in a month, or 2 months to see how your fitness is improving.

Chris Walls is a Personal Trainer at the Crossfit Kelowna Training Centre. For more information on Crossfit, please visit http://www.crossfitkelowna.com