accurate scale reading?

daisydreams1234

heya friends,
i'm a 5'10 female, and well, entirely unsure about my weight.
at the start of last week, i weighed in at 141 lbs, on thursday i ate a bit more then usual (2,500 cal) and weighed in at 146, and yesterday i was 139.6, and today i'm at 138.2?
and i do weigh myself after i wake up, before i eat or drink anything, but still, my weight seems to drop a pound every day?
and i know that's not humanly possible. i'm sure it's just fluctuations due to water, but i'm curious how to get an accurate reading (or, at least as accurate as possible)
Thanks!!

Nony_Mouse

Use a trending app to log your weight (Happy Scale for iPhone, Libra for Android, Trendweight web based, requires a free Fitbit account to log your weight into, but not an actual Fitbit).

Weights taken over a week don't really tell much, particularly for a premenopausal woman. Mine drops like a rock for 8-9 days following ovulation, last month I dropped 2.6 kg (5.7 lb) in that time. Some of that was fat, most of it was water weight that had been masking fat loss for over a week prior to ovulation. Same happens at TOM, though less extreme. My weight loss over a four week period is exactly what it should be for my calorie deficit.

If you find that your average weight loss over a 4-6 week period is higher than anticipated, increase your calories.

Nony_Mouse

Are you trying to lose weight, OP? Because you are already at a low BMI...

AnnPT77

Here's my view: We don't have a "true weight". We have a current weight range, and a longer-term weight trend.

Over a day to a small number of weeks, our weight tends to vary up and down within a range of a few pounds **. That's the current weight range.

Over many weeks to months, that range tends to gradually move downward (weight loss), stay consistent (weight maintenance), or move upward (weight gain). A weight trending app, as Nony recommended, will help visualize that trend. It's very difficult to see - may even be misleadingly masked by water retention fluctuations - over shorter stretches of time.

** Good article here about why that's so:

https://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations

threewins

8 pound difference between heaviest and lightest. That's pretty large. I'd change the battery, and see if things settle down. If not, I'd buy a new scale. Assuming that you always measure on a hard level surface, you probably shouldn't be seeing such differences. It could be that the maximum was a one off, one of the sensors was having a bad day.

lorrpb

The 146 was likely a sodium and food overload from the overeating day. Aside from that you have a 3 lb trend over a period of several days. That’s not particularly alarming or concerning to me. All of these are “accurate scale readings”. No one has one “true” weight.
What is your pattern over the past 30 days?

gothchiq

Our scale is weird. The first weight of the day is always off. Then on subsequent steps it gives the exact same weight each time. I have a growing young cat that I weigh periodically by first standing on the scale myself, then standing on it holding him and doing the math. It puts him at 8.5 lb and our chubby tabby at only 9. I had estimated her at 10.5 at least. The batteries are new. I don't know if I trust it.

threewins

gothchiq wrote: »

Then on subsequent steps it gives the exact same weight each time.

Pretty much all scales do this. It's called hysteresis. Its purpose is to stop people repeatedly weighing to see tiny changes and saying that the scales are #kitten# due to the errors. You can reset the scale by holding a bottle of water etc, or carefully using one foot on the scale to get a low value.

Siberian2590

Any electronic scale is going to have inaccuracy, unless it costs thousands of dollars. A mechanical balance scale is the only accurate, economical scale.

But everybody already knew that.

katarina005

Hormones

midlomel1971

I keep an unopened 20 pound container of kitty litter near our scale and I use that to make sure our scale is calibrated correctly. I only weigh myself once a week, though.

manderson27

I use my dumbells to check my scale if it seems off. It never is though.

KickassAmazon76

My weight bounces around like a yoyo throughout the week. I weigh every day, First thing. I always spike leading up to my period, stay high, and then drop after.

Depending on water consumption, heavy workouts, sodium consumption and regularity, I can see anywhere from 2-5lbs change on any given day.

Trending is where the meaning is at.