" wrote:
wrote:

Does your scale really have an accuracy and repeatability
of less than a pound? *No. *Back in junior high school
science classes I remember learning about error bars and
estimating the size of data errors when doing experiments.
Is this no longer taught in schools? *Given the confusion
two presidential elections ago when the vote in Florida came
out closer than the size of the error bars I guess not. *All
instrumentation has some amount of error built into its
readings.

I understand what you're saying. But why is that when the weight
changes in those examples, it's always downwards in the case of a
night sleep and always upwards in the case of a shower? If it was just
a scale malfunction, then should not it be the way around at least
sometimes? How many *scales will I have to try until I'm convinced
that the phenomenon I'm talking about is real and not just some kind
of scale malfunction?

Or are you saying that these phenomenon are real, but there is no way
I can tell if the difference is really one pound because the scale is
not accurate enough?

That's part of my point. The scale isn't accurate to really know the
difference between a pound up and the dial jiggling a little.

I've seen the scale go down after sweating in a hot shower. I suspect
what you're seeing isn't really your body soaking up water. Skin does
not aborb water like that that I know of and while lungs do the amount
of
steam inhaled in a shower is far too small for a pound. At first I
wondered if you step on the scale still wet but it takes a half liter
of
water to have a pound and there's no way I can hold that much water
as droplets on my skin and in my hair.

My bigger point is that because the time scale for loss is month to
month not before and after a shower, there's no useful data to be
gotten by stepping on the scale before and after a shower. No matter
what causes the difference in the readings it's not fat.

I think nearly everyone diets to lose stored fat not water. And/or
they
diet to lose size and pounds are merely a side effect of the size.
The scale measures both fat and water and everything else because
it all reacts to gravity. That's the problem - Changing water effects
the scale so it's easy to think some progress has been made because
the reading on the scale changed. This ends up a self defeating
approach because not matter how you try to look at it water isn't fat
and water loss is easily reversed into water regain for no apparent
reason. Too frequent use of the scale tends to put focus on the small
changes not on the trend. It's too much like listening to the static
on
a radio rather than tuning to a station.

If there were a magic scale that accurately mesured only fat it would
be far more useful to most of us than our current scales. Body fat
percentage scales attempt this but they seem to be quite inaccurate
in the current generations.

Why would someone really want to lose water not just to see the
scale drop? Wrestlers doing a weigh in. Folks with bloating issues.
Those are the ones I can think of.

Why would someone really want to lose weight not size and not
care if the weight was fat, water or lean? Folks so heavy they have
foot damage are the ones I can think of who need to lose so much
losing lean doesn't matter early on. Those are the ones I can think
of.

But the scale doesn't just measure fat or lean. More's the pity.