Check-In Checklist: Are you making progress with your physique and fitness goals?

Here I'm going to outline some of the essential questions that I ask my 1:1 clients weekly, that I think you should be asking too.

So you've got big goals and you're chipping away, but at some point- whether it's one week or eight weeks, you'll be thinking:

How do I know if I'm making progress?

Simply put- 

If you're not progressing, you need to be troubleshooting whatever's holding you back and to do this accurately, self-reflection and assessment of your progress is key.

How do you do this?

First off- the main takeaway I'd like you to get from this is that scales aren't the be-all end-all and don't reflect your body fat percentage, strength, health or happiness. 

What the scales do reflect is your relationship with gravity. This can be affected by your fluid balance, digestion, sodium, whether you've exercised (muscle inflammation), your last meal, your organs, bone mass, muscle mass and fat mass. Note that muscle and fat are just two pieces of the puzzle there. 

Anyway - the scales can be utilised as one of your measurement tools- but only in the context of the overall picture and with other measurements. 

What progress measurements should I take?

Here are some of the measures I use with my coaching clients each week when we check-in:

Physique progress measurements:

Weight changes (in context of the week AND the month)

Circumferences (to accurately reflect fat mass decrease)

Photos (most people want to improve what they look like, not what they weigh)

Adherence measurements:

How closely did you follow your nutrition plan? (Honestly)

What was the range of protein & calories across the days in the week?

How was the rest of your physical activity?

Did you follow your training sessions?

What improvements could you make to the adherence of your program?

Lifestyle questions:

What are your stress levels?

What can you do to actively improve your headspace?

What stage of your menstrual cycle are you at? (This impacts fluid & weight)

Any other considerations, alterations or anything else?

This is a brief summary of the weekly check-in I do with 1:1 clients, and this is why I ask so many questions:

Checking in with a combination of progress, lifestyle and adherence questions allows me to assess progress as an overall picture AND to adjust the plan if need be. This could be altering nutrition, training or both in response to the feedback from a client.

For example, if there's no physique progress for 2-4 weeks but adherence has been 100%, then I make necessary adjustments. 

If there's been no adherence but the plan is feasible and improvements could be made, we focus on ways to improve adherence. 

If there's been no adherence because it's not achievable for the client with their current work and lifestyle, then the plan needs to change.

Annnnd if there's been 100% adherence and progress has plateaued for one week, the client needs more patience ;) Rome wasn't built in a day.

What to do with this info?

Coaching is a two-way street, which requires honesty, continual feedback, monitoring and education. Knowing when to push and when to empathise is a delicate balance and depends on the individual being coached as well as coaching style.

If you're coaching yourself, then you need to be honest with yourself when you're doing your own check-ins and reflections because the only person you're fooling is you. These questions are a good place to start if you're on the journey on your own so save these for future reference!