Dieting is tough. Losing fat and getting lean is tougher, and getting shredded is the toughest. If it were not, everyone on the streets would be walking around shirtless with shredded abs. But, that is not the case.

One reason why people miserably fail on their road to get leaner is that they do not know how to track progress.

Yes, you read it right.

If you think you are not making progress, you stop trusting the process and give up altogether.

You see a little bit increase in the weight on the scale and you lose your mind and go all guns blazing and stuffing your mouth with everything that comes your way.

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Now, let's talk about how to one's track progress?

First thing, understand that checking your weight and trusting that or using it as the only tool to measure progress is outright stupid. Partly because you do it wrong all the time.

Yeah, checking your weight before and after your training session to see how much weight you have lost that day is idiotic.

What are the tools you should trust to help you with gauging the progress?

1. Your pictures

2. Your measurements

3. Your average weight

Let's discuss all of them in detail:

When you start your diet, or in general if you want to track your progress year-round, your pictures would be the best tool for that. When you gain a pound of muscle or lose half a pound of fat, you will not see it until you compare your pictures.

Another thing about pictures, screw your gym selfies. If you want pure progress picture, get naked (almost naked) and take a front/side/back relaxed and flexed pictures.

Invest in a goddamn mini tripod for the same. Click pictures weekly and compare them.

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Again, take these once a week. At times, especially if you are a beginner, you may be losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time. Say you have gained two pounds of muscle and lost one pound of fat, the net result on the scale would be a one pound gain.

Not the direction you would be expecting during losing fat. You are actually making better progress here and you should be continuing with this.

Instead, you check the scale and cut your calories and thus undo the process by not keeping room for your muscle to grow.

Start taking measurements, at your chest, waist, and hip circumferences once a week.

If the scale shows up but you are looking better in pictures and losing inches, who cares what the number on the scale is?

Firstly, your weight is essential for your relationship with gravity. Unless you are an MMA fighter or a weight-restricted athlete or going bungee jumping or skydiving, your weight does not mean much. It is merely a number.

Add to that, your weight can fluctuate 1-3% day-to-day due to sleep, hydration, food, sodium, fiber intake, how well did you poop, etc.

And it changes throughout the day as well due to these reasons.

So, first things first, stop checking your weight when you go to the gym at 7 pm in the evening. Nor should you check it when you leave.

Check it first thing in the morning on an empty stomach and with minimal clothing on. Along with that, do it around 3-4 times in a week and take an average. Mainly to cancel out the day-to-day variance.

Do the same for next week and compare. If the trend is downward, you are doing good. If not, then make adjustments.

Not the day to day should I change my diet or should I change my training confusion you create for yourself.

Author bio:

Pratik Thakkar is the co-founder and director of GetSetGo Fitness, an online fitness company and the founder of Mars Nutrition, a nutrition supplement company. Both his companies are geared towards providing you with the right information and products without any false or fake claims. You can reach out to him at pratik@getsetgo.fitness and follow him on Instagram.