There are a lot of ways to measure weight loss. A lot of them include using a measuring tape or taking photographs over time. Still, I don’t think anyone reading this blog would be surprised to find out that the most common way we use is the simple bathroom scale. Interestingly – as I recently discovered as I started taking my BMI and wellness seriously – they’re really not very simple anymore.
What Can a Bathroom Scale Do to Measure Weight Loss?
If your bathroom scale was anything like the one that was in my house when I was growing up, it was a measure of weight and that’s it. Depending on how new the batteries were and how soon after a shower I weighed myself (since it changed the humidity of the room), it would measure weight loss as bigger or smaller. What can I say, we weren’t the kind of house to drop a hundred dollars on a scale.
But have you been on Amazon lately? Scales do wayyyy more than that now. How heavy you are is just the start. After all, when you think about it, that’s only so useful. Your scale doesn’t just measure weight loss if you burn fat, but also if you haven’t eaten in a while, if you use the toilet or if you stop retaining water.
You Can Measure Weight Loss and Understand More with the Right Tool
A good bathroom scale won’t just stop at being able to measure weight loss. With it, you can learn more about your body fat percentage, water weight and other important factors. This way, you can get a better understanding of whether your weight was lost because you stopped eating so much salt and flushed out some excess water, or if that plateau is because you’re building lean muscle, not because you aren’t burning fat.
How to Measure Weight Loss with Some Awesome Bathroom Scales
With the help of my best friend and co-blogger Holly, another friend of mine, and my own investment into my keto diet, I got to try out three pretty impressive ones recently. These are all scales purchased with our own money. We’re not affiliates of anything and we don’t make any money from mentioning these brands. These are the ones I tried because they were the ones available to me.
Fitbit Aria 2
This is not for the faint of wallet, but if you collect your gift cards and can get one of these, it’ll be a lot of fun to use (assuming you also have the Fitbit app and one of the trackers). This scale measures BMI, body fat, and weight and works it all into your app with graphs and tracking over time. It works for up to 8 people (which is why I was able to use my friend’s). The one major factor I found it was missing was muscle mass.
EatSmart Precision Plus
This model is much cheaper and much simpler to use, and it’s consistently accurate and quick. It weighs people up to 400 pounds. While it does just measure weight loss, it does it so consistently that it had to be on this list. I’ve never had a scale align with my doctor’s and pharmacist’s every time before this.
Eufy Smart Scale P1
This scale provides a huge number of functions with a small price tag. For under $50, this will measure weight loss, but also BMI, lean body mass, body fat, visceral fat, water, bone density and others. It also connects to other apps, including Fitbit – which it does well – and Apple Health and Google Fit, which I didn’t test. This one was the option that really impressed me for features and price combined.