Scales For You

Our grandmothers cooked on an old wood stove with a few pots and pans and a measuring cup or two.  Wouldn’t they be in awe of the modern kitchens of today!  Every kind of appliance and gadget is available to cooks now, but guess what–we all eat out!  One lady said, “I wouldn’t have a kitchen, but it came with the house.”  With the gas prices rising, we may all need to go to cooking school and learn to cook at home again. 

If we’re really going to get serious about cooking, we need to take a look at our kitchen and its appliances and gadgets.  Do we have a set of food scales.  Food Scales are useful for accurately weighing ingredients such as butter or shortening, as well as measuring food portions as specified by diet requirements.   Oh, I didn’t mean to mention diet, but it is an important word if you really want to stay healthy.  Many health conditions require specified diets and a good set of food scales can make it easier and more accurate to follow the plan. 

You’ve probably noticed that very few homes now have an analog bathroom scale. These scales, which have a mechanical needle to indicate weight, are being replaced by a digital scale. Digital scales promise more features and better accuracy. It’s hard to be precise when reading an analog scale. Your weight could be 130 or 130 1/2 or 130 1/4. Who knows? The needle points somewhere near 130.  A digital scale (depending on its weight increments) may tell you that you weigh 130.2 or 130.5.

Digital Scales can offer features that are not possible with an analog scale. Some digital scales can keep track of several users. Some offer the choice of weighing in pounds or kilograms and the display can be brighter and easier to read. Advances in electronics have affected the scale industry as well as a lot of other areas. If your bathroom scales are older and out-of-date, consider shopping for a new digital scale.

If you’re good at math, you might want to play around with this formula:

weight in lbs./height in inches squared x 703

That is the formula used to find your Body Mass Index (BMI).  If that’s a little more math than you bargained for, the solution is very simple.  Just purchase a body mass scale!   A person’s body mass index is mainly used by physicians to determine risk factors associated with overweight and obesity.  However, it’s good to have some idea of what we’re dealing with before we go to the doctor.  After all, doctors don’t tell us what’s  wrong–they ask us!

Escali has a scale with an easy-to-read remote display that shows weight, Body Mass Index, Time and Date.  The scale turns on and calibrates when you tap the platform with your foot.  It has a 330 lb/150 kg capacity and a weight graduation of 0.2 lb/0.1kg, Body Mass Index 0.1%.  This seems a lot easier than working on the math formula!

Do you have extra money that you just don’t need? I don’t! I like to spend the money I have as wisely as possible. Many times we spend more money for a product to get extra “bells and whistles” that we probably will never use.

A digital scale is not always essential.  A spring scale or dial scale can fill a need and may be more durable and economical. They come in different styles, colors and sizes.  Look for an easy to read display and a scale that can weigh in pounds, ounces or grams.  We can often save our hard-earned money just by buying a product that matches our need.

Time is a valuable asset and if it’s wasted, it cannot be reclaimed. If you have packages to mail or ship, a good set of postage scales is a must. Let’s go shopping!  We need to look at the size of the weighing platform and maximum weight the postage scale can measure. Almost any postage scale can handle small documents weighing less than 2 lbs., but we may have an oversized or heavier package and we want to be prepared. We also want an easily-read display and the Tare feature to subtract a container weight when needed.

The Escali Granda digital scale is a high-end digital scale with a capacity of 220 lb / 100 kg with a wired remote display for easy reading. The over-sized stainless steel platform is designed especially for weighing large and heavy objects. It has the Tare feature to subtract a container’s weight and obtain the weight of its contents. This should solve our problem!

Can you believe they now have digital-electronic scales that can measure the percentage of body fat? Pressure-contact electrodes are built into a digital scale’s platform that send a low current through the body to measure resistance. It seems that fat and lean tissue measure differently and this electronic genius can tell what percentage of your body is fat and lean.

I think I’ll just measure my fat and I can say, “Oh, I only have a few pounds of fat I need to lose.” Or maybe I’ll just measure my lean and not even count the fat! I may try to fool myself, but the scales will make me face the fact that my exercise and fitness program and/or my eating habits definitely need some revisions. Guess I better start shopping for a body fat scale.

Sometimes scales lie! I know we use that as an excuse many times for our weight gain when it is really due to our recent indulgences, but sometimes it is true. If your bathroom scales are old and cheap, don’t expect them to be accurate. You may need to go shopping for some new scales.

If you looking for new scales, consider accuracy, readability, size and style. My husband says, “If you buy something you don’t like, you don’t get to where you like it.” You know that is so true most of the time. Electronic digital scales are so much more advanced that the ones I used when I was young. They come in many colors, sizes and styles. Do yourself a favor and get those scales now. You’ll be glad you did!

Many of us are overweight and always looking for an easy way to lose weight. However, sometimes weight loss just seems to happen. That is the time we need to seek medical help.

Many health conditions can cause us to lose our appetite and start losing weight. This is another reason the bathroom scales should be an important fixture in our home. Escali digital bathroom scales will help you determine unwanted changes in your body weight.

It is my belief that when a hobby ceases to be fun, it is no longer a hobby.  I love to ride my Harley, but it’s no fun if the temperature is much over ninety or below seventy.  The last two weeks have been so hot and humid, I have not even considered getting it out of the garage.  We usually ride late in the afternoon, but with the weather so hot, I am completely wiped out by midafternoon.  It occurred to me yesterday that we should change our routine and ride in the early morning when it isn’t so hot.  So I set my alarm for 6 a.m., got up, got some coffee, and got dressed.  We rode from about 7:45 until 9 a.m., stopped and ate breakfast, then rode home.  It was wonderful!  Sometimes, we just have to rethink our routines.

We get into eating routines that are often not healthy and lead to obesity, if we are not careful.  Sometimes we can just change a routine a little and prevent some of our overeating habits from ruling our lives.  Eating while reading or watching television, eating late at night, eating when others are eating even if we’re not hungry–these are a few of the worst eating habits or routines for gaining extra pounds.  Change these into healthier routines and watch those bathroom scale numbers go down. 

Life is too fast.  We drive too fast, we live too fast, and we eat too fast.  Everybody has somewhere they need to be and they’re in a hurry to get there.  We shovel our food down as fast as possible, because we’re already late getting to somewhere.  Even the ones of us who are retired seem to have a heavy schedule, largely because everyone we know thinks we have plenty of time to do whatever they need done, or serve on some committe they don’t want to fool with, and we haven’t learned to say, “NO!”

Every diet I’ve been involved with says chew your food slowly so your stomach can tell your brain it doesn’t need anymore before we’ve overeaten.  If we would all take a deep breath, back up, slow down, and reprioritize our lives, we could eat slowly enough to actually enjoy our food.  By eating smaller amounts, but enjoying it more, we might lose some of that excess weight or, at least, stop gaining.  It helps to weigh our food portions on a food scale before placing them on the plate, then we’ll know how much we’re actually eating.  Many times, we don’t realize how much we have consumed until we have that too full feeling.  Life is complicated.