Here at Powher.fit we are huge advocates for documenting your fitness journey with progress pics! Fitness journeys start at all stages of life. Some may start as early as grade school while others wait until they’ve become a grandparent. No matter where you started, we encourage taking a progress pic NOW! Whether Powher.fit is your first time to start focusing on fitness or even if it’s just a new lifting program you’re excited to try – TAKE A BEFORE PICTURE! Even better than only having a before picture would be to include body measurements of yourself. You can do this by measuring yourself with a measuring tape or going to find a local in-body machine (usually found at local nutrition and supplement stores) that will measure your percentage of body fat and lean muscle mass.
Society teaches us that the most common way for people to talk about and track their progress is with the weight number on the scale. Here at Powher.fit we actually DO NOT recommend using your body weight as a measure of progress! Why?
When you step on the scale you’re not only measuring your body fat, but you’re also measuring blood volume, hydration level, your bowels (awkward to type, but so true!), and even your hair & clothing. Also 2 people of exactly the same scale weight and heigh could have dramatically different physical appearances due to muscle and fat percentages. Your number on the scale has very little to do with how lean you are, the amount of lean muscle mass you have, or how healthy you are!
Doing side by side photo comparisons of yourself is so crucial because sometimes when you don’t think you’ve made any progress, you can clearly see it in the pictures! It’s also encouraging and rewarding to see body changes over time and to have those “before” pics to remember where you started. Remember the beginning of the journey and seeing how much progress you’ve made over time can prove to yourself that change really is possible and it can keep you motivated to maintain or continue in the future!
I promise with time you’ll soon start to notice more than just size and shape differences in your photos, because you’ll also start to notice more confidence too! That’s right, embracing a fitness journey improves how you look AND feel. When you feel better about yourself, your posture will get better, your smile will get bigger, you’ll start to truly glow and just look happier! You’ll start to walk with a little more swag (I hope this word is still popular LOL), you’ll start to have more self confidence, you’ll become a little less camera shy and maybe even spend an extra few minutes in the bathroom mirror admiring your “gains”.
How should you take your before picture?
Any progress picture is better than no progress picture, but we suggest having someone else take the photo for you! That way you can have a photo without having to take it in the mirror, get better natural lighting (day time is best) and be sure to get full body shots. We suggest taking a couple photos each time you take a progress pic. We also encourage trying to keep the same distances, poses, angles and lighting for optimum comparison between each photo session you take. This can be taken on a smart phone or a simple camera – it doesn’t have to be anything professional. We suggest natural lighting over using a flash this way in case you do take a mirror selfie, it won’t distract from your photos. It’s also a great idea to do one photo in a basic pose (stand upright, do not slump) but don’t squeeze or twist in any awkward way. You should still be able to breathe in this position, but then we also encourage a photo where you are more “flexed” so you can start to compare noticeable muscle gains over time.
Progress photos can be so intimidating at the beginning, but I promise you WILL WANT THEM TO LOOK BACK ON in the future. Even if you’re only comfortable taking a mirror selfie that nobody else will see or maybe you set an automated timer for yourself, just do it! You don’t have to show anyone for a very long time! But once you start to transform, you will be SO GLAD you have a before picture to go back to.
We will encourage all PowHer.fit members to take before and progress photos. We will encourage you to send them in to Randa or Ben, but if you’re not comfortable that is OK!!! As long as you take a before photo for yourself we are more than pleased! After you take that before photo, get ready to get to work getting fit! You’ve got goals to accomplish!
Randa was scared of the camera in all of her before photos and wouldn’t dare think of taking a true “before” photo for accountability. Now she wishes she had more of those photos to show her true transformation, so learn from her lesson! See a few of her difference photos above.
