weight scales - digital and analogue - vary by 10-15 kgs

rociobelindamendez
rociobelindamendez Posts: 1 Member
edited November 2024 in Health and Weight Loss
Hi there,

Hope I an get some insight here - I just bought a normal bathroom scale
At the shops - which is a flat, even surface it was 87 kg on the normal scale,
then when I tried at home the analogue scale changed from 87 to 95 - I live on the top floor apartment, and right next to the railway tracks. If I move it around my place to get the most even floor it fluctuates between 95-98 then i step outside and its over 100 - I'm very confused. The original 87 at the shops seems where I am at, and as soon as I took the same scale upstairs to my home, it changed by 8-9 kgs
I've also used a digital one, but they kept changing all around the place, and I don't like them. They also had a very big discrepancy from the shops to home, about the same.
Anyone had similar issues?
I wanted to get a good indication of where I'm at, and with such differences it's hard.

Thanks so much x

Replies

  • ccsernica
    ccsernica Posts: 1,040 Member
    edited January 2017
    Take the scale you bought back to the shop and weigh yourself there. If there's still a big difference between it and the one they have on display, one of them is very, very wrong. It'd be good to have a known reliable scale, such as one at a doctor's office, to verify your true weight so you have more than just feel to go by, but it's entirely possible you're dealing with a defective scale here. (Either the one you tried at the shop, or the one you actually bought and took home.)

    Normally I wouldn't see a difference as such a big deal, since the important thing to track weight loss is consistency: Use the same scale in the same place every time you weigh yourself. But a difference of up to 13 kg is a LOT. Something is seriously wrong. Are you sure it's zeroed properly?

    If this is the exact same scale between shop and home we're talking about, I have no idea. I'd have thought this was way too big a difference to be accounted for by normal fluctuation, unless you're putting it down on a carpet or something.
  • cnbbnc
    cnbbnc Posts: 1,267 Member
    The more you weigh yourself the more numbers you're going to get, so stop. Pick the scale you like better and toss the other one. If you want the more accurate one, pick the flattest floor surface you have for it, and take something you know the exact weight of (I used 20lbs of cat litter) and put it on the scale. Then see if the scale registers correct. Leave the scale in that one spot and don't move it around.

    And don't weigh more than once a day because your weight will naturally fluctuate and you'll just make yourself nuts.
  • Whitemagictiger
    Whitemagictiger Posts: 7 Member
    I am having a similar issue, but with the same scale. I have a digital one and sometimes I weigh myself and think no that's not correct, then weigh myself again and it's a kilo or more different. I am lost at what to do also. I keep my scale in the same spot also.
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,338 Member
    Whitemagictiger wrote: »
    I am having a similar issue, but with the same scale. I have a digital one and sometimes I weigh myself and think no that's not correct, then weigh myself again and it's a kilo or more different. I am lost at what to do also. I keep my scale in the same spot also.

    Is it one a hard floor or a carpet? Is the floor solid or does is sag when weight it put on it?
  • trudie_b
    trudie_b Posts: 230 Member
    Mine is the same. I read somewhere that the first weight is to be discarded as it's the scale calibrating - I have no idea if this is true, but certainly the first time I step in my scales I'm consistently 3-5 lbs heavier than on subsequent weigh ins. What I've ended up doing is getting on and off five or six times, and taking the number that comes up most often as the correct one. For example, today I weighed:

    150
    146
    148
    146
    146
    146

    So I concluded that 146 was right (yay me, 6 lbs to reach goal!).

    I'm on a hard floor, so that's not an issue, I think it's just what digital scales are like.
  • Curlychip
    Curlychip Posts: 292 Member
    I've just bought new scales too... they seem internally consistent but show 1.5 stone more than the previous
  • Ming1951
    Ming1951 Posts: 433 Member
    I have a aria scale and it seems quite accurate. Although its digital I keep it on the tile floor in the bathroom. My weight at the doctors coincides with it. Maybe a pound more at doctors but they always have you keep your shoes on.
  • Decapins
    Decapins Posts: 49 Member
    edited January 2017
    you could return them and just use a tape measure
  • trigden1991
    trigden1991 Posts: 4,658 Member
    Buy a digital scale, put it somewhere flat and don't move it, wake up, go the toilet and then weight yourself. That is the most consistent way to weigh yourself.
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,338 Member
    trudie_b wrote: »
    Mine is the same. I read somewhere that the first weight is to be discarded as it's the scale calibrating - I have no idea if this is true, but certainly the first time I step in my scales I'm consistently 3-5 lbs heavier than on subsequent weigh ins. What I've ended up doing is getting on and off five or six times, and taking the number that comes up most often as the correct one. For example, today I weighed:

    150
    146
    148
    146
    146
    146

    So I concluded that 146 was right (yay me, 6 lbs to reach goal!).

    I'm on a hard floor, so that's not an issue, I think it's just what digital scales are like.

    The only time I have something like that happen is if I move the scale to a different place on the floor, and not always then. If the scale remains unmoved, it it consistent. The other time there are weight differences is when the battery is running down.
  • ccsernica
    ccsernica Posts: 1,040 Member
    I don't see how this can be due to the usual issues that people have with scales. We're not talking about a couple of pounds here and there but as much is 15 kilograms. That's well over 30 pounds. Something else must be going on.
  • kkress92
    kkress92 Posts: 118 Member
    Sounds like it needs to be zeroed.
  • tasaiar1
    tasaiar1 Posts: 79 Member
    Wow that is a big difference.
    Yes I had that problem before. Not personally but ladies came to do weigh ins in my local community centre. And I sat and watched, most of them were saying how the scales were wrong be 4 or 5 kg and it changed on didn't surfaces.

    We were in the basement room, so we found a flat concrete surface that seemed to work well
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