[Geek Alert]

We Techno-geeks seem to naturally turn every new interest in our lives into a collection of shiny new gizmos. When I was a teenager, only half my bright new interest in photography was for its artistic possibilities. The rest was about all the neat finger candy you could play with. Cameras, lenses, light meters, enlargers, grain focusers. The possibilities both artistic and techno were endless. Poor as I was, I managed to satisfy my inner techno-geek by haunting the used equipment bins, and working nights at a fast food joint.

So naturally, the first thing I did when I made up my mind that I needed to loose weight and get my body back into some semblance of its former trim, was go on a hunt for the right bathroom scale. Should be simple…right? Ha! Because I am a techno geek, I had to first go and absorb information about the technology of weighing things. Which hasn’t really changed much since the time of the ancients, but I didn’t take any high school physics classes because those involved calculus. It’s still basically compressing a material of known resistance, like a spring say, or more traditionally, comparing a known weight against an unknown one on a balance.

Most bathroom scales use a spring and (here comes the physics), a series of levers to reduce the load of the thing standing on the scales (you) on a small precision spring. The spring is known to compress a given amount for a given weight, and as it’s compressed another lever turns a dial, or in the case of the new digital display scales, adjusts some electrical device that changes the characteristics of a circuit which generates the number on the display.

The problem is the spring. Its compression characteristics can change over time, and with other environmental factors like temperature. And it’s a coarse measure. Notice how the tick marks on the dials are all jammed together. That’s because your typical bathroom scale uses a smallish spring for both cost and to keep the size of the scale small. Even the digital scales have this issue. I’ve never used one, but people who have often complain that you can step on and off them repeatedly, and keep getting different readings.

The bathroom scale I already had was giving me that problem. Every morning I’d walk into the bathroom and glance at the scale and have to readjust its zero point again. I’d step on, and off and on again, maybe half a dozen times, and mentally average the readings I was getting. And I’m at that stage in a diet now, where the weight losses over time are small. I lost my first eight pounds in about five days, but that was because my body was horribly out of where it naturally wants to be. The weight is coming off more slowly now, and I don’t want to do this in a way that puts my general health at risk. So I needed a better scale to measure my progress on.

And a better way is to use a balance. This is how the scales in a doctor’s office generally work. Those things with the beam at the top, and the little sliding weights the nurse flicks over until the beam rests in a level position again, as shown by the pointer at one end of the beam. All those things are, in essence, are a balance. Again, using levers between one side of the balance (where you stand) and the other (the weights on the beam – the beam itself is one of the levers), such that it only takes a small weight on one side of the balance, to balance out a larger weight on the other side. The little weights that slide across the beam are of a known weight. The rest is math that I never learned, regarding force applied across the length of a lever and where its pivot point is. But the physics of it is constant, and all it needs to work is gravity. A balance scale will always be accurate regardless of climate, or how often its used, provided you set it up properly. And it will give you a consistent, and more precise reading.

But who wants a doctor’s scale in their bathroom? (pointing to myself) I was the kind of guy who would have put a large satellite dish in his back yard and found it beautiful for the sake of the technology behind it. In fact, I have a dish on my roof now, but they’ve grown smaller since the 1980s. So after I’d convinced myself of the technological superiority of the balance type scales, I shopped around for a good one, and finally settled on one sold at Amazon. These things are a tad pricey, but I justify it on health grounds. I need to take more responsibility for managing my weight at this stage in my life now. And I want to look attractive. At least for my age. And I’ve had it proven to me rather dramatically now, how simple changes in my eating habits affect my weight, and my energy levels. So a good bathroom scale is a good investment in my overall health, so long as I make a commitment to use it and pay attention to what it’s telling me. Which I probably will. It’s a pretty neat gismo after all.

It came in the other day and setting it up was a breeze. It’s in my upstairs bathroom now, up against one wall, and big as it is, it really doesn’t take up all that much space. It occupies only a tad more floor space then the little scale I had did. And I can say for a fact that it’s amazingly accurate. I weighed myself shortly after I had it set up. Went downstairs and drank several ounces of ice tea, then immediately weighed myself again and saw the additional weight right there on the scale. I could never have done that with the old scales…which are now off to Goodwill.

Five weeks ago I was pushing 170. Now I’m hovering close to 150. And I’ve done nothing more radical then eliminate the between meal junk food, and watch my calorie intake during the day. I still occasionally feed from my deep fryer, but I keep a close calorie count the rest of the day. When I get the urge for something sweet and sugary I take a walk. That actually kills the urge pretty well. I allow myself one small snack during the morning, and one in the afternoon, but not of junk food snacks. This weekend, if I’ve managed to drop below 150, I’ll go have myself dinner at my favorite rib joint. I get hungry in the afternoon and late evening, but not horribly so. And I feel so much better now. More active. More mentally alert. It really does make a difference.

I still need to get with a muscle building program though. Hey…more gismos!