HAVE you been eating well, training hard, but not weighing less?

Weighing yourself is not always the best way to monitor your weight loss.

If you exercise regularly then your body composition will change, meaning you will gain lean muscle mass and lose body fat.

This means that you may weigh more on the scales as you have gained healthy muscle.

Which also means your body will metabolise fat faster — bonus!

So if you are losing fat and gaining muscle, your results may not show on the scales, in which case it would be better to measure your body fat percentage.

You can do this on some weighing machines or, more accurately, by using Body Fat measuring Calipers, which most fitness professionals will use.

You could also take photographs of yourself every few weeks and monitor your progress, or try an item of clothing on which is too tight for you and notice the difference.

If you’ve been following an new exercise and nutrition plan, you may find you lose more weight in the first week but then the following weeks your weight loss slows down.

There could be a few reasons for this, the first week’s weight loss could be mainly down to water loss.

Also, the more you weigh, the more calories you burn during any given activity, so obviously at the start of a programme you will weigh more and have more body weight as resistance.

To aid your weight loss results, try to continuously challenge your body.

Every few weeks refresh your training programme, run further or faster, lift more weights.

If your body gets used to your training and no longer finds it challenging then your results will slow down.

Lastly, keep motivated.

Find something or somebody that inspires you or motivates you, if you have a few weeks that may not seem like you get massive results, don't panic, think of how you can challenge yourself for next time.

To get in touch with Claire, follow her on Twitter @CLKpt or email ckopocki@me.com