These are the bare bones things to measure for a beginner – meant to be cheap, non-invasive, motivating, and give you a general sense of physical progress.
Simple measuring
- Body weight
- Weigh yourself every morning on a scale right when you wake up, after using the restroom. Start the day before the fast and continue until the day after the fast.
- Record in the Apple Health app. Expect to lose 3-5 pounds of water weight pretty quickly (which will also come back quickly) plus 0.5 to 1.0 lb of fat loss per day. Your lowest weight will likely occur the morning after the day you break the fast.
- Continue to monitor sporadically the following weeks to see if the weight comes back.
- Waist circumference
- Use measuring tape every morning to measure waist size (smallest circumference on your torso, usually at or right above belly button This approximates fat loss. Record in Apple Health app.
- Continue to monitor the following weeks to see if the waist size increases again. If you are gaining weight, but your waist size stays the same (or smaller), then you are gaining lean mass (muscle). If you are gaining weight and you waist size is also increasing, then you are gaining the fat back.
- Photos (optional)
- If you want to visually track your progress, you can snap a photo every morning as well.
More advanced measuring
If you are more advanced in your fasting journey, or are into body hacking and quantified self movement, check out a more comprehensive list of things to track in Advanced Measurement. For example:
- Blood glucose monitor
- Blood ketone monitor
- Apps (Apple Health, Zero, Oura, Levels)
- Spreadsheets & graphs
- Mood trackers
- Skin fold calipers
- DEXA scans
- Other blood tests
