Weights and measures

sheepish · Post by **sheepish** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 10:56 am

I mostly prefer not to weigh or measure but rely on the fit of my clothing. Lately, Iâ€™ve been wanting some kind of measure to see how Iâ€™m doing. One of the problems that I have with weighing/measuring is that certain numbers upset me. My â€œnaturalâ€ weight and size is about 10 stone and a 28 inch waist â€“ thatâ€™s 140 pounds for the Americans reading! â€“ and, right now, Iâ€™m more like 12 stone and a 33/34 inch waist. Those numbers by themselves upset me â€“ for some reason, in particular, having a waist that is larger than 30 inches is hard for me to take.

This week, it suddenly dawned on me what to do about the fact that I want something measurable but that particular numbers upset me â€“ Iâ€™ve gone metric! I now measure myself in centimetres and have set my scales to kilograms. Iâ€™m not the kind of person who can convert instantly between metric and imperial in my head so I donâ€™t get upset by the numbers and yet I still get to measure progress!

I still donâ€™t plan to weigh/measure that frequently â€“ probably once a week or so â€“ but I do like the idea of being able to tell whether or not Iâ€™m making progress overall.

SpiritSong · Post by **SpiritSong** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 1:49 pm

Smart solution!

Nicest of the Damned · Post by **Nicest of the Damned** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 1:57 pm

You know what? This is a brilliant idea, that's what.

Maybe someday I will get a metric scale. Or I wonder if I could get a scale that measures weight in stone. I have even less feel for that than for metric. Do they sell those in the UK?

You could even use this idea to track progress in pounds (or stone, for you Brits). You know your original weight in kg, and the difference between it and your current weight in kg. You convert only that difference, not your original weight or current weight, into pounds or stone, and there you have it. You know how much weight you've lost without having to know your original or current weight.

sheepish · Post by **sheepish** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 2:22 pm

Nicest of the Damned wrote:You know what? This is a brilliant idea, that's what.

Maybe someday I will get a metric scale. Or I wonder if I could get a scale that measures weight in stone. I have even less feel for that than for metric. Do they sell those in the UK?

You could even use this idea to track progress in pounds (or stone, for you Brits). You know your original weight in kg, and the difference between it and your current weight in kg. You convert only that difference, not your original weight or current weight, into pounds or stone, and there you have it. You know how much weight you've lost without having to know your original or current weight.

The scales in the UK are in stones but they do also have markers for pounds - so that you can see where you are within the stones (if that makes any sense!) so I'm not sure whether that would work as well as a scale in kg.

I really like the idea of tracking just progress in pounds/stone. If you put the formulae in once in a spreadsheet, there's no need to do a conversion each time.

Hoeka · Post by **Hoeka** » Thu Jun 30, 2011 6:15 pm

I play mind games with kilograms and pounds: I measure weight loss in pounds, simply because it sounds a lot more more impressive, and weight still to be lost in kilograms - it sounds a lot less! Having lost 11 lb makes me feel a lot better than having lost 5 kg, and wanting to lose another 20 kg feels a lot more achievable than 44 lb.
But - and this is a big but: in the serious part of my mind, I realise that I still have a long way to go, no matter how I measure it.

Nicest of the Damned · Post by **Nicest of the Damned** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 2:08 pm

sheepish wrote:The scales in the UK are in stones but they do also have markers for pounds - so that you can see where you are within the stones (if that makes any sense!)

I just came back from a vacation in the UK. I saw a scale marked in stone, and heard a talking scale on television. It looked like they said, "Your weight is X stone and Y pounds", not "Your weight is X stone and Y pounds, which is equivalent to Z pounds". Is that right? If it is, that would be fine. All I'd know is that I weigh more than however many pounds are in a stone. I'd have to look that up on Wikipedia to know how many pounds that is, but I'm pretty sure that a stone is a lot less than I'm supposed to weigh.

Linguisticsgirl · Post by **Linguisticsgirl** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 2:13 pm

Stones are part of the imperial measurement system which also include pounds. There are 14 pounds in a stone so if you weigh 140lb you also weigh 10 stone, if you weigh 146lb you weigh 10 stone and 6lb. It's similar to feet and inches, you can measure yourself in just inches but most people would say they were 5ft 3 rather than 63 inches. In the UK we still use the stones to break up the lbs.

Hope that helps!

Nicest of the Damned · Post by **Nicest of the Damned** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 4:08 pm

Linguisticsgirl wrote:Stones are part of the imperial measurement system which also include pounds. There are 14 pounds in a stone so if you weigh 140lb you also weigh 10 stone, if you weigh 146lb you weigh 10 stone and 6lb. It's similar to feet and inches, you can measure yourself in just inches but most people would say they were 5ft 3 rather than 63 inches. In the UK we still use the stones to break up the lbs.

Hope that helps!

That would be OK. Multiplying by 14 is not something I can do in my head. The problem with kilograms is that I know a kilogram is, very roughly, 2 pounds, and I can multiply by 2 in my head.