My scale is pissing me off.

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Replies

  • johnnifast
    johnnifast Posts: 23 Member
    Go to your local retailer, get a scale and weigh yourself. You can then see if your scale is broken or not. If it not, return it an get your money back.
  • QuietBloom
    QuietBloom Posts: 5,413 Member
    To get the most accurate reading you can, first thing am after going to the loo is best simply because at that time you have an empty stomach/bladder/bowel so this eliminates these fluctuations.

    Makes sense if you think about it.

    Agree. Don't know why this seems to an arguing point.
  • KarenisPaleo
    KarenisPaleo Posts: 169 Member
    Don't fret. Remember that numbers don't make people. The heart and personality is what matters. Once you learn to embrace yourself then everything else will fall into place. Be more proud of your accomplishments. Don't be too hard on yourself. Good luck!
    What? I thought this site was about losing weight.


    Hahaha! You are funny =)

    Scales suck, because they are made in hell
  • jeffd247
    jeffd247 Posts: 319 Member
    Congrats on your 7 pound weight loss!! Seems like the scale is working as intended!! :wink:
  • SailorKnightWing
    SailorKnightWing Posts: 875 Member
    It "is" about the numbers. No matter how much you love or don't love yourself, when you start a diet plan, the measure of success is by the numbers.
    The mushy mushy, oh the numbers aren't important rhetoric is for people who are trying to rationalize their failure to lose.

    It might be about the numbers for you, but for me it's about body composition. A scale provides a point in time measurement of the whole package - water, bones, muscle and fat - with no regard to the proportions. There are folks out there who might weigh less than me, but have a higher body fat percentage, but according to your standard (and ones like BMI) I would be the one who is less healthy. So yes, I'm just trying to rationalize my failure to lose - those 10 sizes I've lost are obviously figments of my imagination.
    You're still measuring success by numbers. Just not the numbers on the scale. You're measuring success by clothing sizes and BF%.
  • NeverTooLateJudy
    NeverTooLateJudy Posts: 10
    I named my scale Rocky... because that describes our relationship. We get together once a week, usually in the morning, usually half dressed... and always before breakfast. He sometimes makes me happy, sometimes sad, a great deal of the time I get angry and threaten to throw him off the front deck. He's never consistent, and I'm sure I keep him around out of habit. Maybe I'll shove the lying *kitten* in the closet and see if I can do without him for the month of November.
  • maca416
    maca416 Posts: 142 Member
    To get the most accurate reading you can, first thing am after going to the loo is best simply because at that time you have an empty stomach/bladder/bowel so this eliminates these fluctuations.

    Makes sense if you think about it.

    Agree. Don't know why this seems to an arguing point.

    Nor me it's so simple realy
  • 3foldchord
    3foldchord Posts: 2,918 Member
    I named my scale Rocky... because that describes our relationship. We get together once a week, usually in the morning, usually half dressed... and always before breakfast. He sometimes makes me happy, sometimes sad, a great deal of the time I get angry and threaten to throw him off the front deck. He's never consistent, and I'm sure I keep him around out of habit. Maybe I'll shove the lying *kitten* in the closet and see if I can do without him for the month of November.

    Do it!

    I weaned my self to not weighing on the scale. Haven't stepped on the scale since July or August. I might check before the holidays start and then again after all the festivities (which will be mid January for me, or early Feb) just to see how it goes in poundage land.

    But I see my self in the mirror, feel how my clothes fit, ... and that tells me how I'm doing.
    And once every other month I check my body fat %
  • must_deflate
    must_deflate Posts: 183 Member
    The best time to weigh yourself is once a week, first thing in the morning after going to the restroom. That is when the number on the scale will be the most accurate.

    "Most accurate" for what? Your body is relatively dehydrated at that point, and you won't get your "real" weight until you rehydrate.

    Sure, it would be your accurate weight after a night of dehydration. What is more important is CONSISTENCY.

    Personally, I always weigh first thing in the morning, after using the loo, and nekkid. I feel like this gives me the most consistent picture of my weight. So what if I'll weigh 2 lbs more after lunch ? As long as I weigh under as reproducible conditions as possible, I will get the best picture possible of my progress. Since I don't usually eat or drink a lot after dinner it usually works pretty well. (Unlike last night-- where we went out to celebrate a family member's birthday and ate later, more, and saltier foods. The scale said I gained 1.2 lbs in a day but in this case I know there's a reason for that, and I'll expect to lose it in the next 24 to 48 hours if I resume my usual habits.

    As for the OP-- if it keeps doing that despite new batteries, just get a new scale. They wear out like anything else.
  • SoLongAndThanksForAllTheFish
    SoLongAndThanksForAllTheFish Posts: 831 Member
    ^^
    I think people are just arguing for argument's sake, but I'll bite this time because I feel like defeating an invalid argument. ;) This weighing time/condition of after you get up in the AM and after you void is the best and the reasoning is right on. You can claim whatever you want is your "real weight", but the important thing is to get the closest to same conditions all the time every time as possible.

    If you want to be a smart aleck and argue "well you arent hydrated", OK then, how much does it take to be "hydrated"? Did you need .5cup water? Too thirsty this morning and drank 1.2 cup, 2cups? Not thirsty the next morning? Tell us exactly how much is the "right" amount. Did you take a blood screen first to determine water concentration for your weigh in? And not going to the bathroom? Whats the "right" amount of urine and feces? Did you measure how much you have in you? No, those arguments are just silliness that get people off track. The important thing again is the exact same condition on every day as much as possible. If you want to drink 100.17mL of measured fluid before because you think thats how much you need to hydrate, do it every single time, thats fine, if you want to hold a 5lb plate of iron because you believe you gain more through the day and thats your "real" weight, thats fine too as long as you do it EACH AND EVERY TIME THE SAME WAY IN THE SAME CONDITION AS POSSIBLE. You are comparing your last state to your current state, and if you dont at least reduce some of the variables, the weigh in becomes less and less valid. "You are dehydrated, morning weigh in is not your 'real' weight so dont weigh in then" is completely invalid.

    To make that valid, your purpose to weigh at a specific concentration, you'd better get out the syringes, beakers with accurate measure, and centrifuges and draw blood and analyze every weigh in then, and you still need to void, have a similar condition as possible to the past state...oh yeah, probably 8hrs rest before measure would be about as similar as we could get since no other time during the day do we get 8hrs of doing one thing in a row before weigh in, and no other time to we get the widely varied foods and liquid intake to stop for a long enough period...wait a minute...we are back to the same recommendations aren't we? ;)
  • JTick
    JTick Posts: 2,131 Member
    Sounds like it's either time for new batteries or a new scale.

    If you happen to go scale shopping, I just bought the Balance From digital scale off Amazon for $25 with free shipping. I really can't say enough about the scale. I think you would be really pleased with it...consistent, easy to read, doesn't require you to tap it on, just step on and go.
  • SoLongAndThanksForAllTheFish
    SoLongAndThanksForAllTheFish Posts: 831 Member
    Seems your scale isn't working so well. I'm lucky mine seems totally accurate, I can weigh myself 4 times in a row and I always get the same number.

    Unfortunately, many times I think its actually a new "gimmick" to have us perceive this as accuracy. Hopefully yours is different, but with my new digital scale I've noticed I can get exactly the same weight 4 times in a row, IF and only if I do the weights within a short period of each other. If I walk out of the bathroom and check my phone and then walk back in and get on...different weight. I think many of the newer scales do not completely reset with "zeroing" when you turn them on, and instead do some internal memory calculations that only wipes in 1 minute or whatever time it takes before you get a true actual reset (power is completely drained from no pressure).

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