Time for a new scale?

#1

So, I’ve been having pretty good success with keto on the whole. I started day 1 at 210 and hit 200 in a week. Water weight or not, it felt pretty cool. I’ve had ups and downs for the couple of months since, but have had an overall downward trend.

Now the interesting part:
I started getting variations in measurements of a couple of pounds. I moved the scale around and reweighed a few times and it eventually went closer to what I expected to see. A few days ago, I was the lowest I’ve been in about 5 years! 191.8! Another arbitrary 10lb milestone was within reach. The next day 196.8. What? Moved and reweighed several times with no changes. Oh well, just water weight, maybe I had more carbs than I thought or overdid the salt. The next day, I went for my first run in a while. Got back, showered, weighed myself. 201.8? water weight again? that doesn’t make sense. Today, I’m at 197.

I know I shouldn’t live by the scale, the clothes I was wearing when it showed 191.8 fit the exact same. I’m terrible at judging how I’m doing based on looking in the mirror, some days I seem to look like I’ve lost a bunch of weight, and other days I look like puffy and gross. Don’t worry, I don’t plan to just quit or anything, just frustrated with seeing my lowest in years turn into my highest in months. My wife has noticed abnormally low numbers alongside normal ones recently too. So I guess I already know the answer to my question.

Is it time to chuck this scale and get a new one? Or did I gain 10 lbs of fat, muscle, and water in 2 days?

#2

I guess I just needed to talk it through with myself. Obviously the scale is wrong, but it makes me wonder what weight I’m actually at and what to expect when I get a new scale.

#3

It happened to me too, years ago. The scale was broken and in my case I hadn’t lost even a kilo. It was so ridiculous I wasn’t even too disappointed.

#4

Glad I’m not the only one. TBH I’d be pretty upset if I found out that I was actually still above 200, even though I know my body has definitely slimmed down. Ordering a new scale today for sure.

(Raj Seth) #5

I have a WeightWatchers branded scale (costco) that cheats. if you weigh yourself, and then repeat, it will give the same reading as previous weighing - making you think it is consistent. If I want confirmation weighing, I have to hold 4-5 lbs item in my hand to make the scale give me a different reading, then re-weigh. My readings then do, indeed, vary by 0.1-0.5 lbs from the first reading. Then one can average…

Me, I just weigh daily, put the reading in a spreadsheet, and then look at a graph. I was 212.8 yesterday and 218.5 this morning :open_mouth:- do I care? NO
I just KCKO, KCFO and use the long term trend of weight and waist to evaluate…

#6

I’ve been suspicious that my scale does that too. It’s from Brookstone, but was given to my wife as part of a weight loss study in college. I’ve noticed that it doesn’t seem to make a difference if I weigh myself with jeans and a sweatshirt on and then without any clothes. So I’ve sort of developed a weird superstitious habit where I make sure I don’t weigh myself until I’ve moved around enough in the mornings to fully empty my bowels and am completely naked, because once I get that first weight it won’t change unless I do the equally weird ritual of resetting the scale repeatedly with different pressures and zeroing.

#7

I bought a cheap scale ($20) at CVS when I started as my old scale ($10 from CVS) was broken. It seems to give me fairly accurate measurements. At least, I know I am losing weight, and my clothes are looser, so that coincides w/ the amount of weight that the scale says I have lost. 5 weeks in, and I have not had any big swings in weight; I tend to lose a pound, stay at that weight for a few days, and then lose another 1+ lbs. I DO have a lot of weight to lose, though.

#8

My scale does this too. Depending on where I put it on the floor I get a different weight.

#9

Mine too. I make a case of putting it always in exactly the same position and putting my feet in the same position. But also if I am pending more forwards or backwards it will change. This is something that wouldn’t happen if I weighed 60 kg, I suppose.
So I generally decide for an average of the numbers I got. It doesn’t really matter anyway. I weigh every day and that too is an up and down. Usually within the week I keep as a benchmark the lowest number of the week.

(Bill Bates) #10

Scales are an ultimate frustration for my wife and me. I was also getting very inconsistent readings from our scale so I went on Amazon and read a bunch of reviews and settled on a scale that got awesome reviews and also sends your weight to your phone wirelessly so I don’t have to manually input anything. But I’ve noticed that when I get up in the morning and weigh myself, then weigh myself 1-2hrs later, I’m consistently .5 to 1lbs heavier and all I did was have a few cups of coffee and go for a 2 mile walk.

(shane ) #11

Weigh first thing in the morning, post visit to the bathroom. This is your weight for the day. I really wouldn’t weigh again until the next morning. I admittedly weigh before bed time as I like to see how much the scale changes from night to morning but I log and record my morning weight for my weight for the day.

You should also do this in as little clothes as possible. I do mine in my underwear.

On Keto your scale fluctuations should be much smaller than on a carb heavy diet.

(bulkbiker) #12

Have you weighed your coffee? I’m guessing that could easily be 1/2 -1 pound…also food in transit (if you get my drift) could have a major impact…

#13

I weigh 1st thing in the morning after my bathroom visit, and weigh naked. The point to weighing yourself daily is to be consistent, same time every day, same clothes (or no clothes). Weighing yourself at different times in the day is an exercise in frustration as your weight can vary a lot.

#14

The app I use also notes the time, which I am hoping I can eventually plot in a spreadsheet and play with my data. Looking for a way to just extract all of the data in a single file and transfer it into something usable. It would be cool to check trends based on time of day and see if it consistently falls above or below the best fit line.

#15

I also picked up an analog scale. Nice and simple spring+wheel readout. Regardless of how accurate it is, I know it’s not going to give me any electronically adjusted information. It’s giving me the weight I expected to see before the electric one started being weird. But now, the electric one seems to behaving properly again. Oh well, maybe I’ll just stack the smaller one on the larger one so I can get 2 readings at once and compare.

(Linda) #16

I looked it up once, and the digital scales have a memory. If it’s just gonna show you what it showed you last time without actually, you know, WEIGHING YOU, what’s the point?

I ditched mine and went back to the old school type scale.

(Sophie) #17

Don’t focus so much on the flux of the scale readings, although it’s wonderful to see those numbers drop at a steady rate. Take your measurements!!! That’s where the real magic of Keto lies. :wink:

#18

I gained 10lbs in 36 hours re feeding after a 3 day fast this week. :slight_smile:

(Ashley) #19

This is why I only weigh myself at work (doctors office proper scales so I usually know it’s correct) always do Monday’s and Fridays.

(Diane) #20

I worked in a research clinic where we calibrated the scales using the same 50 lb weight once a week. It’s the only way to be sure a scale is accurate over time. The other thing we watched was the battery, if you’re using a scale and the battery is dying, you can get some wildly inaccurate readings.