Tale of the Scales

As part of starting this goal and blog, I bought a new scale.  I really should have done it a few weeks before starting, but the idea of trying to lose a pound a week came to me about a week after my birthday.  And the decision to blog about it only came around week 5.

The old scale was a simple spring based scale bought in another country so it showed stones not pounds (1 stone = 14 pounds).  It no longer retained its zero setting.  You could zero it, weight yourself, get off, and it would be above or below zero.  Re-zero it, repeat.  So eventually I gave up, it was mostly within a pound or so on the zero mark.  It also provided different readings leaving it alone, I tended to weigh myself 3 to 4 times and getting a consensus estimate.  I figured part of the issue was that it only went up to 273 pounds accurately as well.  After that it rolled over the zero mark.  I figure I probably bent the springs a little from when I was heavier.

So I felt it was time to get a new scale, since that level of inaccuracy was going to be unacceptable for this project.  The new scale is as mentioned a Weight Watchers scale.  In addition to total weight, it zaps you with a tiny little bit of electricity and uses it to estimate body fat, body water and bone mass (I won’t go into detail but to say that none of my numbers are where they should be).  I can’t say I spent a lot of time on the decision – it was the same price as most of the others, wasn’t white (which I don’t like) and didn’t have a glass top (which my wife would have hated).

I will say I was surprised by the 6 pound differential.  I figured it would be 2-3 pounds either way.

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