Scale Your Weight

Health science and nutrition were experiencing tremendous development in the last decade. They are still constantly evolving in a very fast pace. Sometimes, it is rather difficult to know what information is valid as some of the latest case studies could sometimes contradict earlier ones.

However, when it comes to the relationship between overweight and some associated health risks, wide range of independent studies seem to agree or have the same basic conclusion over the last few decades.

Most people agree that being overweight would increase the risk of many diseases and health conditions. These include heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, stroke, osteoarthritis, gallbladder disease, respiratory problems, colon cancer, breast cancer, liver damage, etc.

Are you overweight?

Let me show you an easy way to calculate your weight; it’s called BMI (Body Mass Index). It’s a measurement tool that compares your height to your weight and gives you an indication of whether you are overweight, underweight or at a healthy weight for your height.

Here is the formula: Weight in Kilograms / (Height in Meters) x (Height in Meters).

In words, you divide your weight (in kg) by your height (in m) squared.

For example, if your weight is 85kg and your height is 1.8m ; your BMI = 26.23.

The following table is a rough classification:

- BMI < 18.5 means you are under weight.
- BMI between 18.6 and 24.99 indicates you are at a healthy weight.
- BMI between 25 and 29.99 indicates you are overweight for your height.
- BMI between 30 and 34.99 indicates obesity (class 1)
- BMI between 35 and 39.99 indicates obesity (class 2)
- BMI 40 and above suggests Extreme Obesity!

The BMI is a good yardstick for you to judge if you’re at high risk of potential health problems. If you’re on the lower end of the BMI scale, you’re at low health risk. But for those who are nearer to the higher BMI scale are at higher health risks.

For example, cardiovascular disease and insulin resistance syndrome are often associated with people who have excessive fat deposits around the stomach and abdomen (or abdominal obesity). Women whose waist circumference of 35 inches or more are considered to be having abdominal obesity. For men, it’s 40 inches or above.

Excessive body fat is a known factor that contributes to narrowing of the arteries and clots that can cause a stroke and heart attacks. Excessive body fat also also causes an increase in blood pressure (hypertension).

Another common health problem that is always associated to obesity is Type 2 diabetes. Of course, genetic factors will contribute to type 2 diabetes but according to most studies, the risk becomes double for those who are obese or experiencing rapid weight gain of say 10-20 lbs.

Although there are many genetic and other environmental elements that could contribute to higher health risks, excessive body fat is always a big factor contributing to serious health issues. Being overweight is not a matter of appearance, it’s a health risk.

In this day and age, a lot of folks are worried about their weight. We all want to be thinner than our friends, and look like the celebrities we all see on television. However, weight is not the real issue because body fat is the real culprit. A high body fat rating increases the risk of heart disease. On the other hand, a body that has very low body fat also puts a lot of strain on the human heart. Millions of obese Americans and the many hundreds of thousands of underweight ones can all benefit from a body fat scale. This device can improve people’s health and perhaps save a lot of life.

An old-fashioned set of calipers can do an effective job but a lot of people still go for an electric body fat scale. You can do some simple measurements that can accurately measure your body fat. A healthy person usually has a body fat at that is around 5% of that person’s mass. Having a body fat that is below 3% can be unhealthy but a lot of athletes carry lower percentages. A rating that is lower than 3 percent on the body fat scale can be dangerous to a person’s health.

People usually get a rating that is higher than what they want when they use body fat percentage scales for the first time. This experience can sometimes cause the wrong reaction. Many folks can over react when they see their body fat scale measurement because they are in denial that they are overweight. They will immediately believe that they have to lose all the weight as soon as possible. As a result, many of them will take extreme measures towards dieting. They may also attempt to completely starve themselves to get a lower rating on the body fat scale.

Setting incremental goals may be the best option in losing weight. However, many people find it difficult to set goals for losing weight by using the percentage on the body fat scale. An experienced trainer can be helpful in this task. Another problem that is worth considering is that people often gain muscle mass as they lose fat. This factor makes calculating goals for the body fat scales very difficult. Losing five to ten pounds each month until you reach your desired body fat level may be a more effective weight loss strategy.

Weight scales are used to measure the weight of persons and objects, of small and large magnitude of different sizes. There are a number of brands in the market, some well established, some new. A number of consumer surveys of the various brands have been done by agencies like Digital Scales.com and the various brands have been evaluated as the best scales in the market.

Ohaus is one of the best and oldest scale brands. Ohaus started with mechanical balances such as the famous Ohaus Triple Beam and began selling digital scales in the 1990’s.The LS-200 was their first commercial success and was later replaced with CS-200.Ohaus was purchased by Mettler Toledo a few years ago. Ohaus continues to produce top quality scales such as their new “Pro Series.”

Mettler Toledo is a huge brand for jewelry and legal-for-trade scales so much so that The Mettler Name is the brand name for legal-for-trade gold scales. Many Jewelers use the term Mettler balance to denote jewelry balance.

Tanita is an old and well-esteemed Japanese scale company. It has a reputation for durability. Many Tanita compact scales use the older Capacitance weighing system. This makes it durable, but also less accurate. But it is the best in Capacitance weighing.

My Weigh is the number one selling brand of precision compact scale in America. It has two factories in Asia producing the Touch scale and mass-production scales. This brand has rolled out numerous innovation s in the scale market like- the world’s first Hydro Hinge scale, the first scale with LCD on top of the display, the first touch screen scale, the first animated scale, the world’s smallest and lightest digital scales.

Detecto/Cardinal Company is the leading brand for a wide spectrum of scales. Cardinal is known for large-capacity scales (5000lbs and over) and associated information handling systems. Detecto is most noted for scales with capacities under 5000 lbs.

Sartorius is a popular brand in Europe for legal-for-trade and laboratory balances. Traditionally German, they purchased Acculab and entered the American market. It has seven group brands that operate globally.

Acculab had a huge market share but was bought out by rival Sartorius. The success of two of its best sellers the Pocket Pro150 and the GS200 plummeted. But the Acculab SV series is still the Best brand in the precision bench scale.

Rice Lake Weighing System (RLWS) is the leader in the industrial scale and process-control weighing industry. They are called the Rolls Royce of Industrial weighing. They design, manufacture and distribute equipment through the world’s largest network of distributors.

CAS is a leader in commercial scales for specialized applications. DIGI WEIGH products are of high quality and cater to industrial retail and hospitality businesses in America. Pesola is the best brand for high quality Pen Scales. A&D Weighing has a reputation for commercial and scientific products. They were the first to incorporate digital calibration and multi-point linearity adjustment in an analytical balance.

There are many other small players in the market but these are the best available brands.

Have you wondered what a healthy weight is for your body? Let me start by saying that for those of you who need to lose weight, I think it’s important for you to focus less on the number on the scale and more on ways to eat healthier, cut extra calories out of your diet, and provide your body with what it needs to function properly, and the weight loss will occur naturally. However, if you have no idea what a healthy weight is for you and you would like to have a goal to shoot for, then here is a formula to help you figure it out:

IBW Equation:

For females: 100 lbs. + 5 lbs. for every inch over 60 in height

For males: 106 lbs. + 6 lbs. for every inch over 60 in height

I also usually allow a range of plus or minus 10% to compensate for different body types and builds. Keep in mind that this is a very rough estimate for ideal body weight. The number you get may seem unrealistic for you, and that’s fine. You don’t need to be enslaved to a number on the scale. If you need to lose a large amount of weight, then make it your first goal to lose just 10% of your current body weight because research has shown that just losing 10% can decrease your risk of obesity-related diseases. Once you lose 10%, then shoot for another 10% and so on until you reach a weight that is comfortable and healthy for you.

As you begin to work to reach a healthier weight, I recommend that you limit weigh-ins to once per week at most. Weighing yourself too often causes you to concentrate too much on the number on the scale and leads to discouragement if you don’t lose as quickly as you would like. If you get discouraged easily by a slow, gradual loss, then you may want to spread out weigh-ins to once every two to three weeks. One week you might lose more than another, so if you limit weigh-ins then you’ll have fewer opportunities for discouragement.

When you do weigh yourself, keep it consistent by weighing at the same time of day on the same scale with the same amount of clothes on (or no clothes at all). I suggest that you weigh in the morning, before your shower, and after you use the restroom (every little bit counts). More than the number on the scale, focus on the difference you feel in your clothes and, more importantly, the difference you feel both physically and mentally. As you start to reach a healthier weight, pay attention to little things, like how you don’t get winded as easily when climbing the stairs, how your hips, knees, and ankles don’t hurt as much as they used to, how your blood pressure and cholesterol have gone down, how much more energy you have, and so on.

Body Weight scales are an important instrument in the field of medicine, sports, personal fitness and employment.

Body weight scales reveal your weight status that can be compared to the weight of others of same height and structure and thus make judgments over whether you are under or overweight, and whether you are recovering or worsening from a disease.

It also puts you into a particular weight category while competing for sports like weightlifting, tae kwon do and boxing. Weight measure also helps in judging whether you are eligible for certain types of employment like army or navy. But its most popular use is the bathroom scale measuring your personal weight to monitor your body fitness.

From young teenagers to middle aged citizens, all are obsessed with their body weight. Body weight scales are available in analog as well as digital. Also heart patients as well as diabetes patients and other sick individuals are required to maintain a certain weight level for medical reasons. The main consumers of body weight scales are hospitals and households.

Along with the craze for dieting came the boom in demand for body weight scales. And there is a wide variety available. While choosing the scale, it must be checked for accuracy like setting the zero mark accurately. Also a suitable range of weight must be purchased. No need to waste money on ranges like 500 pounds which most people are not likely to reach. The next quality to check is readability and the best is the digital scale which displays numbers indicating weight.

Some new body weight scales are used to measure ratio of fat to muscle mass. Users stand on asset of metallic footpads, which send a small harmless current through their bodies. Based on the natural electric resistance offered by the body fat, a small computer can measure the ratio of fat to body muscle. This reading is of great use to dieters.

Dieters are advised not to be affected too much from their daily body weight readings. Daily weight readings tend to be affected by amount of water retention, excess salt intake, the effect of menstruation, shifts in glycogen storage, and decline of muscles.

Body weight scales are of great use for human beings both at home, in the hospital and in sports and games.

Are you one of the millions of people stuck in that endless “diet yo-yo” and continually gaining and losing weight? Or just trying to lose weight at all and continually frustrated? Join the club! However, we want you to renounce your membership, and in order to do that you must cast away some of the sacred rituals and poisonous “common knowledge” about diet and exercise that are incorrect. The biggest two? The concept of a “diet”, and the obsession with regular weigh-ins. We’ll touch on both, but for today, we want to convince you to throw your bathroom scale out the window. Actually don’t, that’s rather dangerous, but you really shouldn’t give it so much attention.

Those of you trying to reach an ideal weight know of the solemn weigh-in routine. Step on the scale daily, read a number, have emotional reaction. More often than not, said reaction is frustration. Your diet and exercise regime has been hard work, and the results are slow in coming. Constant weigh-ins like this tend to be terrible for your self-esteem and motivation. Moreover, getting healthy is a life-long process. You need to learn how to eat properly, and incorporate routine into your life, and obsessing over short-term gains and losses is terrible at reinforcing that. Even worse? Weight really isn’t a great indicator of how healthy you are. Building muscle will make you look and feel better (and burn more fat) but the scale can’t tell between healthy, heavy, flattering muscle and unsightly and unhealthy excess body fat that is comparatively lighter.

If you’re caught in the endless diet loop, you need to address the root causes of what got you to where you are. Over the years, you have developed habits and formed ideas that have caused an imbalance between how much food you intake compared to your activity level. It’s also likely that the quality of what you’re eating is less than ideal. Most people have a terrible concept of what a proper serving size is, and eat too much fat and empty carbohydrates. You simply cannot expect to ever be able to remain at a healthy weight you’re happy with and carry on like you have been! Short-term diets aren’t how healthy people maintain their ideal weight, they do it by learning about proper nutrition and portion sizes, relative to their activity level, and training themselves to enjoy eating this way every day. The best part is that it’s not as hard to do this as it sounds!

The scale is just distracting. What will help you look and feel like you want to is changing your habits to eat properly and get exercise regularly in a way that you enjoy and can keep up. The focus should be finding a healthy lifestyle that makes you happy, and the constant depressing news from the scale brings you down and makes you feel like these efforts are wasted because there is no immediate effect. Exercising and proper eating, meanwhile, feels good and continues to reinforce that your new habits are good for you.

Since our bodies are complicated machines, using the numbers on the scale to quantify your efforts are a bad idea. Losing weight is more of a side-effect and motivation to do something more important: feeling healthier and happier about yourself. The perfect example of this is something I touched on earlier. Many people who are trying to lose weight balk at the idea of strength training, as they fear that it will make them “bulk up” and get even bigger and weigh more. Women sometimes fear that it’s not “feminine” and that they don’t want to look like a bodybuilder. This is a very bad attitude!

For starters, bodybuilders don’t look that way on accident. Trust me, unless you want to look like that, it won’t happen. Second, muscle burns fat even at rest, so the more you have the more extra calories you can burn every day, which will help you lose weight much faster. However this may not translate to lower numbers on the scale. It’s very possible those numbers will stay the same, but you’ll drop several sizes. This is something to get excited about! Ruining that by getting upset about numbers is a waste of time and energy, and could very well be detrimental to your progress. So forget the scale, worry about your body composition, and looking and feeling good.

So do you really want to

To be slim without dieting, you need to follow some basic rules which are:

Eat when you’re hungry;

Eat foods that you feel like eating and that make you feel good after you’ve eaten them;

Eat your food slowly and with awareness;

Stop when you are satisfied (not stuffed!)

I realise that this can be much easier said than done! Our articles explore how you can move towards eating in this way, which is a much more long term approach than going on a diet to lose weight.

This article talks about eating when hungry and stopping when satisfied. This is vital to re-build trust with your body and to teach your body that it does not need to store fat because it will always get fed when it needs food. Eating before you get ravenous also ensures that you don’t get to the point where you’re so hungry, you’re just stuffing it down in a frenzy!

A useful tool is the “Hunger Scale” which rates how hungry or full you feel on a scale of 1 to 10, as follows:

10 – Ravenously hungry, maybe feeling faint or shaky, desperate to eat.
9 – Very, very hungry.
8 – Hungry enough to really enjoy the food and confident that it will taste great. But not so hungry that you feel ill or absolutely desperate to eat.
7 – Fairly hungry and looking forward to eating.
6 – You just have some early feelings of hunger. You need to wait a little before you eat but plan to make sure you can eat soon.
5 – Neutral, neither hungry nor full.
4 – Pleasantly satisfied. You have had just enough food to feel satisfied, and not stuffed. This amount of food leaves you feeling energized, rather than tired or bloated.
3 – You have gone slightly beyond satisfied. You might be eating on autopilot, to clean your plate, to please someone else, to rebel against being deprived or just because it is so good! Stop and ask yourself why you are still eating.
2 – Stuffed. You’ve overdone it. You’re feeling somewhat uncomfortable, you might want to loosen your belt or sit back in your chair.
1 – Absolutely stuffed to the limit. Possibly feeling sick. You’ve really over done it! (Work out why you ate so much, but remember, nobody died!)
Make sure you eat at a 7 or 8 on the scale and stop eating at a 4. Remember you don’t have to stuff yourself because if you get hungry again later you can always eat some more. The more you start to tune into your feelings of hunger and fullness, and make sure you eat in response to hunger, the easier it will become to maintain a healthy weight

For help with the other principles for staying slim without dieting, take a look at my other articles or visit the website – see the link below.