Hello Pookie,
I'll have a go at answering you for starters.
"what unit of measurement is on your scales when you weigh yourselves. Is it Kilograms? or do your scales have an option to weigh in Stone as well."
We have stone AND Kg on our scales, usually. The KG because we're meant to be part of the European Community and they all use metric - although most of us still don't. Below the line marking out lbs and stone is the KG one, or if you have electronic scales you flick a switch and it gives you whichever unit you choose.
So our scales often say *1, 2, 3* whatever stones but of course, between these are the lbs - so you can see instantly you're X stone, Y Pounds. My kids know KG but most adults still prefer stones and pounds, the old Imperial system.
My scales, like most UK scales, actually have 3 units - KG, stones and lbs and just lbs so for making my tickers for here, for example, I'll flick the scales over so they give me it in lbs but that means very little to me, so I actually weigh myself in stones and lbs. You think of the stones like the hour hand of the clock, lbs like the minute - one is a gradation of the other.
On US websites it takes us a while to adjust because suddenly we have to calculate what on earth *I weigh 190lb* means! Ten stone is 140lb so if it's a lot over that it takes ages to figure out!
"Do you ever refer to your weight as any measure other than Stone?
If you are losing weight do you have to wait till you lose an entire stone before it really counts?"
No. You see British people online do use the lbs like in the US mainly as a courtesy to US people so they can understand what we're on about....but in reality, here, and when we're talking between ourselves, we'll say stones and pounds because that is faster to grasp, for us. And no you don't have to lose a whole stone for it to count! We say *I'm 12 stone 7*, or whatever. The next week, you might be 12 stone 5, and so on, til you're 12 stone. Then, the following week, you could be 11 stone 13... It's confusing as there are 14 lbs to a stone but 16 oz to a lb, but we're used to it!
Whenever you hear what someone weighs do you always calculate how many Stone they weigh?
Yes, definitely. If you said to me someone weighed 15 stone, I'd have an instant mental image of how big they are. Likewise, if you said they were 10 stone. If you say to me *X weighs 213lb* I'd look puzzled and have to go look it up. As I don't know my 14 times table, it takes some time!
In the past 30 years we have joined the European Economic Community so are gradually losing all the old fashioned things, like lbs and oz. My kids will only think in grams and kg. Our temperatures changed from Fahrenheit to Centigrade, and when I was a kid, our money changed from the old pounds, shillings and pence to decimal, where 100p = £1. At some point we'll get the Euro. I was brought up to learn both *old* and *new* money at school in the 1970s and old and new units of measurement so I can think in cm as well as inches. Our rulers have both Metric and Imperial on them still although now in school kids only learn Metric. Our conversion to metric is pretty well complete now, and UK shops weigh things in grams and KG not the old fashioned ounces like you still have - but when it comes to our personal weights, most of us still are on Imperial! So I weigh stones and pounds but the food I buy in the shops is weighed in g and KG. Sounds complicated - but we've been going over to metrics for 30 years so we're used to using both and it's not complex when you do it everyday.
That said, if I'm on a market I still ask for a *quarter* of something, or a pound of something, and they do still give you that although by law traders are meant to be Metric.
In twenty or thirty years the UK people you see online will definitely be talking of their weight in KG - not stones or lbs.
It's curious how the US lost the stones, as presumably you had them at some time, or you wouldn't still have our old system of lbs and ounces! I wonder if the Aussies have stones, as culturally, we have a lot more in common?
