Scale Confusion!! :S
 

Hello All,
I've run into a recent issue where I weighed myself on 2 seperate scales and I'm wondering which one to go by. As of right now I weighed in at 215.2 before I left home to go for a swim. At my family members home I weighed in at 212.4 and I was excited! I love that number, but when I got home weight double checked on scale at home showed 214.6. which is a loss but I'm confused as to which weight to go by!

Anyone else had this problem before? Any suggestions?

Go by your home scale since you have easier access to it. Weigh yourself at the same time (preferably in the morning) and water the same clothes each time.

Also, check to see if your scales needs to be calibrated.

I don't want to go by my home scale! :'( lol
How do you check if scales are calibrated?

I agree to go by your home scale for easier access. The important thing is going to be your change in weight over time. Not the exact number. Also keep in mind that weight will fluctuate throughout the day, often by several pounds. That is completely normal and the range varies from person to person. You could add an error if you like...say you weigh 213 +/- 1 lbs.

For some people daily weighing works, for others weekly, and some do once a month. Whichever frequency you choose, try to weigh at the same time of day so that you minimize the changes based on daily fluctuations. Weighing at several times during the day can be discouraging because of the daily changes.

Personally, I'm starting to wonder if the snapshot method doesn't give an accurate representation. What if my once a week weigh in happens to be when I'm retaining water? Or I'm dehydrated so I'm abnormally low? I'm thinking of doing something like a 5 day running average but haven't settled on a method yet.

To check your scale calibration, you can test the weight of several items of known weight. For example, exercise weights. Or I know my cat always maintains his weight of 12-13 lbs (lucky guy), so I sometimes check with him. But keep in mind that while if your scale has a bias (e.g., always 2 lbs too high) then you can adjust for that, but if it's a percentage (a 5 lbs weight registers 4% too low, or as 4.8 lbs) that it's off, this is harder to account for with heavier objects (a 200 lbs person will register as 192 lbs).

Really the only way to properly calibrate a scale is with known weights in the range of what you are weighing. If you are weighing an approximately 150 lb human being, you'd need to calibrate with three 50 lb weight-lifting weights or the equivalent. I wouldn't use commercial packaged products to calibrate a scale since they would have some inherent variability in how much goes into a package - they may vary by as much as 10%, they usually overfill by a bit because they can get in trouble for short-weights, and you would have no way of knowing, so using 40 lb bags of kitty litter would not be reliable enough if you are concerned about a 2-5% variance. I work in the pharmaceutical industry where weighing accuracy is very important. As atmos explained, if your scale is off by a percentage, weighing small things is going to be much less reliable as a way to verify accuracy of a scale.

Does your doctors office have one you can try? I
f you do the one closest to that result would be best. Otherwise i agree your home scale would make best sense.