my scale may be playing a trick on me
 

( i had no idea where to put this thread )

Call me old fashion but I own a dial scale. Okay, I'm not old fashioned I was just another starving student when it came time to buy a scale and this price looked a little better.

Anyway, I was wondering how good are they to trust? For the last 2 months I've had it and been doing weigh in it seems to be pretty consistent. Like for example for the past week I've been 129, always right on the line. If I weighed myself when I felt bloated or later in the day I'd be around 130 which seems right since I was full of water, etc. ANYWAY, now I'm only wondering because this morning I got on about 5 times and each time it said I was 127! I sure as heck don't feel like I lost 2 pounds in the last 2 days.:shrug:
And since its a dial scale, I made sure it was exactly on 0 each time before I stepped on.

Should I maybe splurge on a digital? I'm afraid to see the difference in numbers if I change scales :(

I have both a dial scale and digital scale, and I prefer the dial one. It's more accurate, but maybe that's just a matter of quality. Do you have any dumbbells or items that you know the exact weight of? That's how I tested the accuracy. I put a 10 lbs. dumbbell on each scale, the dial one said 10 and the digital said 11.2...so I don't use that one anymore.;)

I always thought the digital scale would be better, but after reading the post from Mongoose, I might have to try that at home. I too have both the digital and dial.

What a great idea Mongoose!
So, I put a 5lb dumbbell on the scale and it read... ::drumroll:: .. 5lbs!

127!! 2 pounds away from my goal! My TOM should be here any second so who know what its going to be next week. But I guess I should celebrate this while it lasts.:woohoo:

I have a dial and digital and I prefer the digital.. mainly because it's more accurate to .2 of a lb, always makes me a tinsy bit lighter and also because i cant read the other scale without my glasses :lol:

I cant see the exact numbers when I stand on my scale... so I use my digital camera to take a picture and zoom in hahaha. It makes it easier to see exactly what number line its on =]

Haha!! Really? That seems like such a pain in the butt just to see how much you weigh! :lol:

Great idea. I'm gonna try that since I think my digital scale may be off. The doctor type scale at the gym always says I'm 2-3 lbs heavier than my scale at home.

i have a set of salter electronic super-whizz-bang expensive scales.. my SECOND set (i gave up on my last ones after they started suddenly weighing me 20kgs heavier every day...!) and i still don't trust them (or don't want to) since the last two days I have been going UP despite eating between 1200-1300 cals and working out. also the gym ones weigh me slightly lighter!

I've had many dial and digital scales, and even one balance scale, and I can say that accuracy depends alot on the quality of the scale itself. I've had digital scales that I were so unreliable it would weight me up to 50 lbs off.

If you weigh yourself several times in a short period of time and your scale weighs the same every time, especially if you can move the scale to different locations on the floor and it still weighs you the same - in my opinion that's a pretty good scale, even if it's accuracy is a bit off. Being able to see weight loss and be confident that you are indeed seeing weight loss and not a random fluctuation of the scale, that's what's important to me. I absolutely hate scales that give you a different weight every time you step on them, even if it isn't off by all that much. I'd rather have a scale that was consistently five pounds off in one particular direction than one that's more accurate say within a pound or two of "true", but has a lot more fluctuation. On the first scale, if I lose a half pound I'm going to see it (even though my "true" weight may be higher or lower than the scale says) on the second scale my "real" weight is going to be closer, but I won't be able to tell the difference between losing a pound and gaining a pound.