This is for those of you with what I call fancy scales, which calculate your weight, BMI, body fat % and water %.
Well, I bought one of those fancy scales in the new year sales as a sort of treat to myself to help me get back on track and hopefully break into new ground this year.
My old scale does weight and body fat, but weighs by .5lbs and the body fat is by 1% increments. However the scale can weigh differently by half a pound each time you get on it which frustrates me. I know I should only get on it once, but my crazy head makes me get on it three times some days and I take the best of three
So I set these scales up and weighed on both to start with. My weight on the new scale is 1lb lower than on my old. My body fat on the old scale I'm really not sure about. It has been steadily going down but over the last couple of days has varied by 3%?
So, what I need to know, is how do you analyse the numbers on these new scales? I did search back through old posts to try to find how your work out what's going on when the water or fat go up, but went back months and couldn't seem to find anything.
As an example, yesterday I weighed 139lbs with 27.9% body fat and 51.8% water. This morning I weigh 138lbs with 27.4% body fat and 52.2% water.
Can someone please help me understand these numbers a little more? I know ideally the weight number and the body fat % should be going down, but what about the water? How do I know when I'm retaining water? Will the water number be higher or lower than the "norm" if I'm retaining, which obviously I don't have yet after only a couple of days?
I do appreciate that these scales aren't totally accurate but it is a tool for me to help me see trends etc and I'd just like to be able to understand the numbers and what they mean a little more.