STEP AWAY FROM THE SCALES

At this time of year, men obsess over the scales needlessly. Here’s the true marker of progress and how to outperform yourself in 2018

An obsession with your weight is so 2017. Here is your new way to measure success

Step back from the scales. Now put them away, please. We know how you feel: the festive period has taken its toll and you want to act. That’s normal. In fact, it’s predictable. As a new year begins, resolutions will be made, gym memberships purchased and subscriptions to this very magazine will soar. Millions will take the destiny of their health, fitness and waistlines into their own hands. A great thing – were it not for the fact that so many are destined to fail.

Last January, 379,000 people became members of The Gym Group – a single UK gym chain. But by the time next month’s Men’s Health is on the shelves, 92% of this year’s newbies will have given up, according to US research.

Some will blame their failure on time, others on finances, but most people become disillusioned by a lack of progress on the scales. However, health and weight are not entirely synonymous. Take American football’s Cody ‘ The Continent’ O’connell. At 6ft 8in and 161kg, any BMI calculator would flag him as morbidly obese. In truth, he’s an elite athlete. Opposite him stand the skinny-fat guys – those whose weight (the result of low caloric intake) is normal for their height and age yet who would wheeze at the thought of running for a bus, their organs swaddled in sinister visceral fat

1 . No, progress to a new you can’t be measured in kilograms. But it can be measured if you know what you’re looking for.

Fitness – the combined power of your heart, lungs and muscles to enable you to do meaningful physical activity – is the true measure of a man. It means you’ll feel stronger, look better and live longer. In fact, a study in Plos Medicine examining data taken from 650,000 subjects revealed that those who focus on improving their fitness, exercising for 150 minutes a week, increase their life expectancy by 3.4 years.

While regularly measuring your weight might crush your spirit, regularly measuring your fitness will crush your goals. And the most effective marker remains the bleep test

2 . Do it. Train. Then do it again in four weeks and see how far you’ve come.

If you can’t stand the sound of bleeps, set a route for a 5K run and periodically repeat it. Or climb onto a Wattbike at the gym and jot down your average power output after a 20-minute effort. Or see how many reps you can perform of bodyweight exercises such as press-ups and pull-ups today, then how many more this time next month. We even encourage you to share your progress on Instagram. It’ll help you stay the course

3 . Keep exercising, keep measuring your performance, and you’ll build muscle and burn fat. And while that number on the scales – if you’re foolish enough to check it – might not change, your body composition will. You’ll have more energy and, importantly, you won’t want to quit. Concentrate on getting fitter first this year. It’ll tip the scales in your favour.

“While that number on the scales might not change, your body composition will”