Smart scales with water % shown

ClaireBri74

HI all, I've had a bit of a water focus / obsession since before Christmas.

I have been consciously tracking what goes in. HOWEVER this question is about what is inside.

My new smart scales give me a water % I have moved from 43.9% to 44.3 %

Now what I don't know is that good or bad?

If your scales do water what is your % ? Should it be higher? How does what I put in my body relate to this?

If you have any knowledge / answers please share

Lietchi

There is no percentage to aim for, no good or bad percentage, as far as I know. Water weight is influenced by hormones, exercise (glycogen and muscle repair), food (carb and salt intake)...
I would say to ignore this number. Just make sure you're well hydrated (checking that your urine isn't too dark).

tinkerbellang83

Lietchi wrote: »

There is no percentage to aim for, no good or bad percentage, as far as I know. Water weight is influenced by hormones, exercise (glycogen and muscle repair), food (carb and salt intake)...
I would say to ignore this number. Just make sure you're well hydrated (checking that your urine isn't too dark).

This!

Mine have that feature, but it's not really a helpful feature, water weight changes constantly and the best way to determine hydration is by the colour of your urine.

1poundatax

I am working with a nutritionist as part of a diabetes prevention group. We were talking about hydration last night and she also warned that our urine should not be clear, that can be an indication we are drinking too much or too fast. I didn't know that. I need to spread my water intake out more for sure.

sijomial

ClaireBri74 wrote: »

HI all, I've had a bit of a water focus / obsession since before Christmas.

Why?
What are you hoping to achieve?

AnnPT77

Um, why, may I ask?

I'm pretty sure my scale estimates that (it's too imprecise/indirect to be a measurement). I literally have no idea what the number is, because it never occurred to me to care. My assumption is that I tend to carry some standard amount of water weight most of the time, and that that will vary abruptly sometimes because reasons. (Yeah, I know what a lot of them are, after weighing myself daily for literally years.)

I figure that if the scale makes a quick jump (up or down), like overnight, it's bound to be either water weight or unusual amount of digestive contents that will be waste within a couple of days. Changes in scale trend - the range of weights through which the daily spot-check scale weights fluctuate - over a period of a few weeks to a small number of months: Those are probably fat gain or loss. Months to years, could be that some changes in body composition (lean mass improvements or degradation) are in there, too, if I've done something to provoke them.

So, cycling back to the beginning: What are you hoping to learn from a somewhat iffy estimate of the body's water content?

I'm not trying to be critical: You absolutely may have an insight here that I've missed. I do that all the time! 😉

ClaireBri74

sijomial wrote: »

ClaireBri74 wrote: »

HI all, I've had a bit of a water focus / obsession since before Christmas.

Why?
What are you hoping to achieve?

Peer pressure I guess "are you drinking enough/" and I didn't know so have tracked. Seen the % and wondered why hence asking in case someone else did

ClaireBri74

Lietchi wrote: »

There is no percentage to aim for, no good or bad percentage, as far as I know. Water weight is influenced by hormones, exercise (glycogen and muscle repair), food (carb and salt intake)...
I would say to ignore this number. Just make sure you're well hydrated (checking that your urine isn't too dark).

Happy to ignore thank you!

ClaireBri74

tinkerbellang83 wrote: »

Lietchi wrote: »

There is no percentage to aim for, no good or bad percentage, as far as I know. Water weight is influenced by hormones, exercise (glycogen and muscle repair), food (carb and salt intake)...
I would say to ignore this number. Just make sure you're well hydrated (checking that your urine isn't too dark).

This!

Mine have that feature, but it's not really a helpful feature, water weight changes constantly and the best way to determine hydration is by the colour of your urine.

I couldn't work out the purpose of it will happily ignore if its just a useless stat Thanks!

ClaireBri74

1poundatax wrote: »

I am working with a nutritionist as part of a diabetes prevention group. We were talking about hydration last night and she also warned that our urine should not be clear, that can be an indication we are drinking too much or too fast. I didn't know that. I need to spread my water intake out more for sure.

Ohhh I always thought it should be clear - that's really interesting. Thanks [

ClaireBri74

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Um, why, may I ask?

So, cycling back to the beginning: What are you hoping to learn from a somewhat iffy estimate of the body's water content?

I'm not trying to be critical: You absolutely may have an insight here that I've missed. I do that all the time! 😉

Trying to understand its purpose really and whether it is something of 'interest' (I'm leaning towards it being not at the moment lol ) that I didn't understand.

AnnPT77

ClaireBri74 wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

ClaireBri74 wrote: »

HI all, I've had a bit of a water focus / obsession since before Christmas.

Why?
What are you hoping to achieve?

Peer pressure I guess "are you drinking enough/" and I didn't know so have tracked. Seen the % and wondered why hence asking in case someone else did

For that, the color of your urine is an indicator. Totally clear is too much hydration. Pale yellow (straw color, kinda) is good. (Bright neon yellow may be OK if you've had extra amounts of certain water-soluble vitamins.) Dark or brown is not good - need more hydration, if persistently dark or some other weird color, maybe doctor visit.

How much water you retain (water weight in the body) isn't a very good indicator of whether you're drinking enough water, for a variety of reasons.

There's a lot of weird mythology around weight loss and hydration, I'm not sure why. Some people find that water/fluids help manage appetite. Other than that, there isn't any real weight loss magic, and even that seems not to be universally a big deal.

Most people can drink when thirsty and come out OK on the urine color test. Keep in mind that the water content in fruits, veggies, soups, beverages other than water (except actual alcohol) are hydrating, too - current research even includes coffee and tea as being more hydrating than diuretic, in my understanding.

sijomial

ClaireBri74 wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

ClaireBri74 wrote: »

HI all, I've had a bit of a water focus / obsession since before Christmas.

Why?
What are you hoping to achieve?

Peer pressure I guess "are you drinking enough/" and I didn't know so have tracked. Seen the % and wondered why hence asking in case someone else did

I always think it's odd of all the animals on this planet we seem to be the only ones that feel the need to count our water intake!

If you have a suspicion that the totallity of everything you eat and drink doesn't adequately hydrate you and your thirst reflex is broken then of course monitoring fluid (not necessarily water) intake makes sense.
If you don't have that suspicion beware it's become of one those dieting myths and distractions - it's far easier to drink an extra glass of water than eat in a calorie deficit.....

Hot weather cycle rides of 3hrs and above - yep I definitely put some effort into consciously thinking about my hydration levels. Day to day it just looks after itself. With that thought I'm going to have a cuppa as I'm a little thirsty..... Cheers!

PS - to dispel a myth a little about the claimed calamitous effects of even tiny levels of dehydration. Some elite cyclists deliberately train and race slighly dehydrated as the saving in weight improves their performance.

SouthWestLondon

I'm really sceptical of the accuracy of smart scales measurement of water, in part because I know my scale is hideously weird when it comes to measuring fat %.

When I started tracking at the start of January, my body fat was showing as 37%. As I was losing some lbs, it actually went up to 38%, then fell to 31% all of a sudden. Then this morning was 26%. Now, as much as I'd like to believe that my body fat %age has fallen by nearly a third in a month, I know it's not true.

I suspect what might be happening is that I'm retaining a bit of water over the last few days - some salty foods etc - so that increases water as a % of body weight and so must lower fat as a %age. But I think some of it has to be inaccuracy. For hydration purposes, I focus on drinking 2 to 2.5 litres of water a day and leave it at that.