Measuring Tape For Weight Loss

Last Updated on November 7, 2022 by

Ever looked at the scale and thought: I’ve gained weight again! What did I do wrong? Stress at work, lack of exercise, or even a hormone imbalance might be playing a part in the reason why.  The great thing about measuring tape measurements is that it can quantify the distribution of your fat. Although the scale will tell you how much fat you are carrying around, it doesn’t tell you where that fat is located on your body.

Losing weight can be a difficult journey, especially if you’re trying to cut down without losing muscle. We’ve compiled an easy-to-follow guide to show you what measurements you should take, why they’re important and how you can use these measurements to track your progress. After all, if you want to take control of your weight, then this is the way to go. Here is why: I’m going to talk about Measuring Tape For Weight Loss, make sure you read this article.

Measuring Tape For Weight Loss

Woman wearing short top and fitness tracker measuring waistline

When it comes to exercise and weight loss, there are plenty of ways to track your progress. Of course, there’s the scale, which is probably the easiest and most accessible, but there’s a big problem with the scale: Unfortunately, it will regularly lie to you about your progress.

The scale measures everything—every sip of water, every bite of food, your bones, muscles, organs, fat. There’s no way to distinguish between what you’re gaining (which could just be water) or losing (which, again, could be water).

That’s where body measurements come in. Taking your measurements is a better way to track progress because you get an idea of what’s really happening with your body. Knowing how to take body measurements is a valuable tool if you are trying to change your body composition by losing fat and/or adding muscle.1

How to Take Body Measurements

Cropped shot of a young woman measuring her waist in the bathroom
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There are a few things to keep in mind when taking body measurements. First, wear fitted clothing or no clothing at all if you can. Stand with your feet together and your body relaxed for all the measurements.

How to Measure Yourself

Be sure to use a flexible, inelastic tape measure. A cloth measuring tape is a good option, or you could use one specifically made for taking body measurements, such as the MyoTape Body Tape Measure.

For accuracy, take your measurements at least twice. Take the average of both measurements to get your final numbers.

For all measurements, pull the tape measure so that it sits on the surface of the skin, but doesn’t compress the skin. You can record your measurements in this progress chart every four weeks to see if you’re losing fat. Some people may lose inches without losing weight. That may be a sign you’re losing fat and gaining muscle.

Every time you retake your measurements, take them at the same time and under the same circumstances, so you can trust the results. For example, some people prefer to take measurements first thing in the morning before eating or drinking anything.

Where to Measure

Here’s where to measure different body parts:

  • Abs: Stand with your feet together and torso straight but relaxed, and find the widest part of your torso, often around your belly button.
  • Arms: Stand up straight with one arm relaxed, and find the midpoint between the shoulder bone and the elbow of that arm.
  • Calves: Measure halfway between the knee and the ankle.
  • Chest: Stand with your feet together and torso straight, and find the widest part around your bust.
  • Hips: This is the widest part of your glutes. Try looking in a mirror while standing sideways. Make sure the tape is parallel to the floor.
  • Thighs: Look for the midpoint between the lower part of the glutes and the back of the knee, or use the widest part of the thigh.
  • Waist: Find your natural waist or the narrowest part of the torso.

How Body Measurements Change Over Time

Body Composition

One thing people want when they start a weight loss program is to make the fat go away in some areas, but stay put in other areas. Unfortunately, we can’t choose where the fat comes off. Everyone’s body composition—how much fat, muscle, and other tissues you have—is different and will change over time based on your lifestyle and activities, as well as the aging process.2

Your body loses fat all over, but the areas that hold excess fat take longer. The bottom line is, you can’t control where the fat comes off, but you can look at your own body type and that of your parents and get a decent idea of where you tend to store more fat and where you don’t.

To some extent, we’re all held hostage by our genes, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make changes to your body. To do that, make sure you have a complete exercise program that includes a combination of cardio exercise three to seven times a week, strength training for all your muscle groups two to three times a week, and a healthy, reduced-calorie diet that allows you to burn more calories than you eat.3

Follow that plan and allow your body time to respond to it. It can take weeks or months to see results, so it helps to focus on other goals like getting healthy or stronger.

Muscle vs. Fat

Another odd phenomenon of weight loss is that it’s entirely possible to lose inches from your body without actually losing weight on the scale. This is another reason that the scale can be deceptive, because, as mentioned previously, it weighs everything, and it can’t tell you what comes off or what goes on.

When you gain muscle, you may be losing inches even though you’re not losing weight, and that’s perfectly normal if you’ve added strength training to your routine or you’re doing a new activity that triggers your body to build more lean muscle tissue. Muscle weighs more than fat, but it takes up less space. If your goal is to build muscle, this is a great sign that you are achieving your goal.4

That’s why taking your measurements can tell you more than the scale and also why it’s body composition, not your weight, that really tells the true story.

Tracking Your Progress

It’s wise to take measurements every two to four weeks to see how your efforts are affecting your body composition while you are actively trying to build muscle, lose weight, or both. If you are trying to maintain your results, taking measurements every month or two should suffice.

Spot reduction, or doing an exercise for a certain body part in the hopes of getting rid of fat there, typically doesn’t work for most areas of the body.5 Taking your measurements will reassure you that the fat is coming off, even if you’re not losing fat exactly where you want just yet.

Normal Body Measurements

Many of us may wonder whether our measurements are normal for our weight and height.

The short answer to this is yes, whatever your measurements are, they are normal for ​​you. Look around, and you’ll find that everyone has a different body shape and size. It can help to know the general body types, which describe where we store extra fat.

For women, we tend to use body shapes:6

  • Apple: An apple-shaped person has broader shoulders and narrower hips.
  • Straight or rectangular: This shape has little difference between chest, waist, and hips measurements.
  • Pear: This person has hips that are larger than the chest.
  • Hourglass: In this shape, the hips and chest are almost the same, with a narrower waist.

Some women also wonder what a “normal” shoulder width is. Again, like all other measurements, the width of your shoulders is normal for you, but maybe not for someone else.

On average, shoulder-width for women hovers around 17 inches. That’s measuring along your back from the top of one armpit to the other. Keep in mind that, for women, the hip line is usually the broadest part of the body, while for men, the broadest part is the shoulder line.

For men, we generally categorize body types rather than shapes:7 These body types are not a scientific description of people’s bodies, but rather a way of describing common characteristics. Most people fall into more than one category and your body type can change with your lifestyle.

  • Ectomorph: People with this body type tend to be lean and may even have trouble gaining weight due to a faster metabolism.
  • Endomorph: This body type tends to have higher body fat, big bones, and a slower metabolism, making it hard to lose weight.
  • Mesomorph: With this type, a person is more muscular and may have an easier time losing fat and gaining muscle.

Most of us fall somewhere on this continuum, but what does this information mean to you?

Knowing your body type or shape tells you where your body stores excess fat. Understanding your body can lower your frustration if you don’t lose fat in those stubborn areas right away. As long as you’re losing fat somewhere, you’re on the right track.

What’s The Best Way To Track Weight Loss: A Measuring Tape Or Scale?

Measuring tape or scale for weight loss

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Whether you love it or hate it, you likely have an emotional relationship with your bathroom scale. Seeing a drop after weeks of work at the gym can put you on cloud nine—and noticing the numbers creeping upward can bring you crashing right back down to earth, fast. Plus, constant weigh-ins can be a source of stress and anxiety, particularly if you struggle with body-image issues or disordered eating.

Given this emotional rollercoaster, is the scale even the best measure of weight-loss progress, anyway?

“I think the scale can be a really tricky thing for people, especially young women or middle-aged women, because we tend to get very focused on the number,” cautions Alicia Romano, R.D., who specializes in weight management at Tufts Medical Center’s Frances Stern Nutrition Center in Boston.

When you weigh in, the number staring back at you does give you a general sense of your progress over time—so in that sense, Romano says, stepping on the scale weekly or monthly can be good for accountability. But relying on the scale alone can cause you to lose sight of other ways your body is changing. “Sometimes you might be making progress, but it might not be showing on the scale,” Romano notes. “Healthy weight loss can be slow and steady.” (Speed up your progress towards your weight-loss goals with Women’s Health’s Look Better Naked DVD.)

Plus, Romano adds, tons of factors can skew your weight on any given day. Your hydration levels, sodium intake, digestive system, clothing, and even weigh-in time can all affect the number you see when you step on the scale, as can the way the machine itself is calibrated. Starting or intensifying a fitness regimen may also account for some sneaky weight gain—though maybe not for the reason you think.

“Anytime we start a new exercise program our body goes through changes due to the new stress we put on the body and its muscle fibers,” Romano explains. “We may develop some inflammation and micro tears in the muscle, which can cause some temporary water weight gain.”

Though there’s also some room for error when it comes to the measuring tape—you may get different results if you don’t measure from the exact same spot each time, for example—Romano says it generally provides a more holistic and unbiased picture of weight-loss progress than the scale. “Measurements are a great way to see other forms of progress that might not be seen on the scale,” such as losing inches or toning up, she says.

Lauren Tefft, a Tier X trainer at Equinox in Boston, also prefers her clients step away from the scale and look to the tape instead.

“For general clients that are just trying to improve their fitness level or maybe look better in their clothes or feel a little more self-confident about the way they look, I think the measuring tape’s a great way to help a person track their progress,” Tefft says. To get the most accurate assessment of your overall gains and losses, she recommends measuring four or five areas on your body—your arms, thighs, waist, and hips, perhaps—every two weeks or so.

With all that said, both Tefft and Romano stress that making healthy, sustainable lifestyle changes is more important than the number you see on either the scale or the measuring tape. “Setting very specific lifestyle-related goals and working toward achieving those goals can be really powerful,” Romano says. “I also encourage clients to monitor other health and wellness related factors: their energy levels; their sleep pattern; the way their skin, hair, and nails may change; the regularity of their bowel movements; things that indicate better health and better nutrition.”

5 things to consider while tracking your weight loss with a measuring tape

01/7Here are something you need to be careful about!

Stepping on the weighing scale is not the only way to keep a track of your weight loss progress. An excellent alternative to this is a body measuring tape. Commonly found in every household, the measuring tape shows the amount of fat lost from different parts of the body like our hips, waists, legs and arms. They allow you to witness the change in your body composition and give a clearer picture than the weighing balance. By measuring your progress with logging tape, you can actually decide which kind of exercises you need to do to reach your weight loss goal- should you focus on burning calories by performing cardio or build muscle mass from strength training. But using the measuring tape for tracking your progress is not as easy as it may seem. There are several minute details that you need to take care of when using the tape.

02/7​Measure yourself once in a week

We all are guilty of weighing ourselves daily in the morning when trying to shed kilos to track the progress. But when using a measuring tape, doing this will only disappoint you. You do not lose fat from the body in a day. So there is no point measuring yourself every day. Ideally, you should measure yourself once in two weeks or if you are very curious then at least try to stick to once in a week.

03/7​Measure the same spot each time

The correct way to log your progress is by measuring the same spot every time. If you are measuring your belly, then remember whether it was above the navel or below it. Similarly, locate the exact point in your arms and thighs where you want to measure and measure around the same place every time. The right way to do it would be to find a spot that has the highest fat accumulation.

04/7​Measure different parts of the body

Do not only stick to your stomach areas or thighs. Measure different parts of your body like thighs, belly, arms, hips, chest. Maintain a log sheet and track your progress by comparing the reading taken after a fixed interval of time. This will make it easy to locate how much fat you have lost and from which area.

05/7​Your clothes

For accurate reading, measure yourself without any clothes on. The extra layer of fabric will add about half an inch in your waist circumference. So make sure you measure your bare skin with the measuring tape.

06/7​Make sure you are using the tape correctly

A common reason why most people get a different reading is because of the way they handle the measuring tape. The tape should sit on the surface of the skin perfectly, but should not compress the skin. There should not be any gap.

07/7​The bottom line

The best time to take the measurement is in the morning on an empty stomach. Every time you retake your measurements, do it at the same time and the same way.

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