Measurments
 

Anyone else get frustrated with taking body measurements? It's so hard to say if you're measuring in the exactly the same spot as the last time, and even small differences in location can result in drastically different measurements. I'm pretty sure that I've lost at least an inch from my hips, and at least an inch from my chest. But I don't think I've seen any loss from my waist, even though my family says it looks smaller. Any tips on how to get accurate measurements?

Hmm--IDK, I've not really ever worried about measuring. I just go by clothing fit. How are your jeans fitting? I was moving down sizes pretty quickly but now it's going much more slowly. If you figure 2" per jean size it should be pretty easy to notice the change. I hope you quickly amass a pile of retired jeans like I have--60, 58, 56, 54, 52, 50, 48, 46, and hopefully in another month or two, the current 44s.

Perhaps someone else who does more measuring will have more ideas.

Regards,
Michael

I measure once a month, and what I do, for each spot, is I always measure the biggest part of that spot. For instance, when measuring my thigh, i loop the tape around, pull it snug around the spot, then slide it up and down to find the biggest spot, loosening as I go.

This works well for neck, chest, bicepts, hips, thighs, and calves, but is tricky for the waist. For me, I have seen what I consider to be great loss in other areas, my waist seems to be the slowest to respond.

I think I would have been too embarrassed to say this before, but oh well...I started taking measurements about two weeks after I started, or about 7lbs in. At that time, my thighs were 36" (what I hope my waist to be some day). Last week it was 31". Over the same period of time I've only lost an inch and a half in my waist, even though I am going on my third reduction in pant size.

Good luck, and trust how you feel and how your clothes fit, and not the tape so much.

Hope this helps.

It's hard to feel real confident about waist measurement. My method is to measure once (relaxed and natural) then I correct my posture but refrain from sucking in and measure a second time. I take an average of the two. Also, I measure right at the belly button.

I don't know how it is for men's clothing, but with women's clothing the designers automatically insert inches in the hips of their design. So when you are making the transition between, it could be misleading.
It is frustrating for me because I am not bottom heavy.

Then there are the variations in how the clothing fits. It used to be petite, misses and womens. Now it is those three with the addition of style code names and every store has it's own code. :eek:

For measuring though, I do the wiggle around until I am sure I have the largest point of my hips but for my waist I put my hands on my hips as if I am about to tell someone off. That naturally falls at my waist, which for me is a little higher than my belly button. No more than an inch on me.

For thighs I always make sure that I am standing and for my arm, I wrap the tape measure around with my arm up, but then I put my arm down for the measurement.

For my bust, I always measure in the same tightness of bra so that the clothing is not holding it in. CLOSE YOUR EYES GUYS!
For younger women, you may still be pert enough to measure without a bra on.

Haha thanks everyone. I think I'll just start measuring less often (maybe once a month), and mostly go by how my clothes fit. I've got an entire closet full of old clothes I'd LOVE to be able to wear again. Some of them are practically brand new. I'll just use that as my guide.

I think that's a great idea, and I LOVE closet shopping. I'm actually wearing one of my 2x polo shirts today and it fits pretty good. Most of my other 2x ones are still a little more snug around the belly than I like (though they fit great around the upper chest area).

Regards,
Michael

Some great tips, my tip is to get an easy to use tape measure. I made a video a while back about the one that I use. You can fast forward to :52 YouTube - P90X YTF&F March 16 update

I go by clothing fit too, and I use Almeeker's "button test" for pants. If you can pull them on and off without undoing the button, they're too big. Waist is the slowest to respond for me too, I'm only now noticing a difference in my belly. My youngest is 2 1/2 so it's nice to finally not look pregnant. I use the belly button for waist measurements but I don't really measure very often because its such a pain in the you-know. I also go by belt notches, so satisfying when you move in a hole! The gym I go to has my beginning measurements on file, and they'll re-measure if I ask them to. It's a lot easier to get accurate measurements on someone else than on yourself.