My old scale is finally unreliable, what should I replace it with?

[JenniferinFL]

So, this is the second day in a row where I miraculously gained multiple lbs sleeping.. lol I weigh a bit obsessively just to see how salt intake or exercise or so on has changed my weight. I weigh right before bed and then again in the morning. Anyhow, the last couple nights I've managed to gain weight overnight without eating/drinking anything.. So, I'm guessing my scale is finally done. One morning it showed me up 5 lbs from my weight the night before. It's always fluctuated a little bit, a couple tenths of a lb here and there, but, now it's fluctuating a bit ridiculously. It is 4-5 yrs old and has been used a lot. 

I'm looking for something else that's reliable. A bit more techie could be cool, but, spouse is a dinosaur who won't catch on unless it's pretty easy. Kid is only 6 and will just step on the thing like she did with our old scale. 

So, thoughts? Fitbit Aria, Withings, or some offbrand like weight gurus that seems to have good reviews on Amazon? Spouse and I are within 30 lbs of each other, so would prefer something that could just recognize who was who without accidentally logging his weight for mine and so on. 

[Dominique]

See this post of mine from last February about Aria vs. Withings vs. Weight Gurus:

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Manage-Weight/Best-weight-BMI-body-fat-scale/m-p/1809346#M51511

[Baltoscott]

My wife and I are using the withings body cardio scale -- have it linked to our fitbit accounts. Apple health app, Garmin etc.  It works great.  The withings app is nice and our weights are far enough apart that it always recognizes each user automatically and correctly.  

I dont have have any experience with fitbit's aria scale but I've read plenty of comments from users that like it.  It has not been updated for a while, though, so your guess is as good as mine if something new is in the works.

i really like getting my weigh ins transferred straight into my fitniss accounts.  

[BYB]

I bought a cheap scale at Amazon and have not had any problems.  Maybe you are weighing yourself too often.  I would cut back to every other day.  When you weigh yourself too often, you tend to drive yourself nuts.  Relax a bit and you will lose weight.  Eat well, do your exercise, drink plenty of water, and sleep enough and you will begin to see a change.

[JenniferinFL]

Dominique, I read your post and then skimmed through Amazon reviews on all of them and ended up ordering a weight guru. Price was just too good not to give it a try.  🙂

[JenniferinFL]

Baltoscott, I almost went with Withing, it had pretty solid reviews, but, the weight guru one was on sale and I couldn't resist the somewhat cheaper one. 🙂  

BYB: Yes, I do weigh fairly often. It's hard to explain my mindset when it comes to weighing. I am fairly detached from my weight. I'm not all emotional about going up or going down in weight. For me, I enjoy the science of it. The scale I had was reliable for a long time, but, my kid used to jump on the thing and it's been funny since. I didn't care as long as it was fairly consistent, but, no matter how often someone weighs they shouldn't be able to gain 5 lbs in an 8 hour sleep period without eating or drinking anything.. lol  Unfortunately, now I realize I'm not even sure if my starting weight was accurate or if I've even lost any weight at all. But, that's okay, I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and log whatever weight the new scale says and proceed from there. 🙂

[A_Lurker]

@JenniferinFL- someone may have already mentioned it, but do sign up for a free account at trendweight.com to see the overall progress.  When you start with your new scale you can delete your old weights on fitibit and start with the new one if it hasn't been too long.  I would recommend that you go to a once a day (most people do mornings after a bathroom trip, before getting dressed) as long as your mood isn't affected by the weights.

[Baltoscott]

@JenniferinFL  -- I'm sure the weight guru will be great.  As @Dominique and @A_Lurker have said, link your fitbit account to Trendweight.  It is free and is a great tool viewing your weight change/progress over time.  

[Dominique]

@JenniferinFL: do update us on your Weight Gurus scale (including the Fitbit integration part of it), once you’ve received it and set it up! If Weight Gurus scales were available in Europe, I’d probably have ordered one, just to compare it with my other smartscales. And if you think you’re weighing too often, I’m stepping on three different scales (1 x Fitbit, 2 x Withings) every morning :

 

However, I only step on each scale once. I believe it’s a waste of time to step on a scale several times in a row, or at several different times during the day.

[JenniferinFL]

A_lurker, I did finally sign up for trendweight. Hopefully that will help fend off the discouragement a bit. Though, it says that based on my weight loss I only had around a 300 calorie a day deficit when according to the fitbit and my food weighing and measuring I should have averaged right around 1000.. Though, I think that's probably skewed by my scale being wonky plus weight fluctuations from a few days when I went for higher step counts and had puffy legs the next day.. lol

I have my Weight Guru setup, it was really easy to setup and integrate. Its' bodyfat scanner function is about 7 percentage points off from my Omron handheld. BUT, I've never really considered that to be a valuable number other than to compare for change over time. 

Dominique, at least with three scales you know when one is wildly inaccurate. LOL I don't think my old one was too far off, I would notice I'd gotten a weird weight and turn it off and back on to get it to calibrate and then the weight it gave me was pretty close to the weight the new scale gives me. The problem was that it gave me a few fake lows that I was overjoyed to take and now I'm stuck legitimately working my way down to that number. Oh well, it's just nice not to have to weigh again because I forgot my weight between the scale and the computer. 

I'm a bit of a data junkie. I weigh at night so I can guess what my morning weight will be, usually 1.5 lbs or so below my bedtime weight. But, since the new scale will log that high 'end of the day' weight if I step on it, I guess that'll break me of the habit. 

[Dominique]

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@JenniferinFL wrote:

trendweight [...] says that based on my weight loss I only had around a 300 calorie a day deficit when according to the fitbit and my food weighing and measuring I should have averaged right around 1000 

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This may be caused by your weighing twice a day (evenings + mornings). If your evening weigh-ins are registered in Fitbit, try to delete them for the past four weeks or so, then refresh TrendWeight: this should make the average daily deficit more realistic.

I’m not sure how exactly TrendWeight calculates the average deficit. In my case, it provides the following numbers:

 

If I use the loss during the past month (0.9 kg), it would be equivalent to a 247 calories daily deficit, not 189. OTOH, 0.2 kg per week would imply a daily deficit of 220 calories.

In any case, I believe the direction of the trendline is what matters most, especially when it gets bumpy, like for me during the past month:

[JenniferinFL]

I was looking through my Trendweight data having only briefly glanced at it initially. It turns out it hadn't imported all of my weights. I changed the start date and then it imported all of the data. Now it shows that I'm at a deficit of around 612 a day which is more in line with what I've logged. Though, I did go through each day of the month and I should have been at an average 1100 calorie deficit between the fitbit's logging and my food logging. 

Though, I do know that my thyroid numbers are borderline hypothyroid, not low enough to treat. I guess when I consider that along with the likelihood that Fitbit is overestimating by about 10% AND then add in inaccurate food product labels and human error in weighing/measuring, eh, I guess that's probably enough to justify the difference. So, it's either increase to more than a 1000 calorie deficit to get an actual 1000 calorie deficit OR continue to get the 1,000 calorie Fitbit deficit and accept that it is only about a 612 calorie actual deficit. I think I'm going to go with the second option.. lol   

[Baltoscott]

@JenniferinFL -- there are so many places where error can creep in with respect to food and exercise tracking.  In addition all you've mentioned, your basic BMR is a ballpark estimate based on, presumably, test subjects of a similar size, age and sex to you.  

That said, going with what fitbit says is a 1000 calorie deficit seems to be working for you right now at, I'm guessing, about a pound or a pound and half loss/week.  That's fine, right?

[A_Lurker]

@JenniferinFL- honestly I'd vote for the second as well.  You may lose a little slower, but if it's maintainable the trend is still heading down.  In the end that's the important part.  I know from all the lose weight fast stuff online (but lets face it they are trying to sell you on something) that a pound a week doesn't feel like enough.  However, it's a loss, and they add up.