Oct
3
The Wardrobe Diet
Filed Under Health, Weight Loss
Clothes, many of us pay too much attention to them and quite a few of us pay too little, but oddly enough, clothes play an important role in any health turn around. Clothes are a reason to be healthy, an indicator of progress or lack thereof and they are also an issue for many of us trying to turn our lives around.
An Indicator Of Progress
I’ve said over and over that weight alone is not a good indicator of progress when you’re trying to get healthier. You can lose weight and not be healthy. Conversely, you can gain weight and actually get healthier. The reason for this is that muscle weighs a lot. So if you gain muscle mass you might actually gain weight. This is a good thing since muscle is far healthier than fat, but it’s a bit confusing for most people who’ve learned to associate weight with health. Yes, for most people losing some weight is probably healthy, but the two are not directly related.
Even measurements like BMI (Body Mass Index) can be misleading. People with a very high or very low percentage of muscle mass can have BMI’s that are just plain wrong. This is because BMI assumes an average amount of muscle mass. I always recommend keeping track of multiple measurements as a way of tracking your progress. You can use weight as one of those measurements, but make sure to use others as well to get a clearer picture of how you’re doing. One of those measurements is your clothes.
Clothes As Measurement
Clothes can be an excellent guide for how well you’re doing. They’re relatively standardized and measure our proportions. If I go from an XL to an L sized tshirt, I know I’ve gotten smaller. The fit of clothing can also tell me a lot about the changes in my body. For example, as I started working out, I noticed my shirts fit a very loosely around the stomach but a little tighter around the biceps. Had I just looked at weight, I might not have noticed a big change since the weight I was losing from fat was coming back as muscle.
What To Look For
- Waist Size - Most pants are measured with a waist size. I went from a 40 size waist to a 32. That tells me quite a bit more than simple weight numbers. Just be careful with this one since different style pants fit differently.
- For women, dress sizes are another obvious indicator
- Shirt size- I was actually surprised when I saw that I moved from an XL tshirt to an L and surprised yet again when I suddenly found an M sized tshirt that fit me. For some reason, I didn’t think my upper body would get “smaller”.
Summary
Your clothes fit your body. This means they’re a great indicator of when your body changes. Pay attention to them because they’ll let you know what’s going on with your body.
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