Over the past few years I've written quite a few posts on weight management and what I've learned by losing quite a bit over the course of about a year and then maintaining my target weight for about seven months so far. What I learned was, with some discipline, I could use diet and exercise to lose at a slow and steady rate. A lot of people are able to do this and the fact that people want to do it and it is sort of do-able fuels a $40B diet industry. The problem is keeping it off. For a variety of reasons most people need several hundred fewer Calories than if they were maintaining weight at their pre-weightloss level. Most of us don't see our appetites change to reflect what can be a large change - nearly 500 Calories a day in my case. I've learned that I have to keep my exercise routine as well as monitor everything I need. I have a summary of what worked for me here.
If you are planning to do this you need a good kitchen scale.
We had an old digital scale that was reasonably well-built, but weighed in five gram increments. You need something in the one gram range. I did some searching and found a lot of recommendations for the Eat Smart Precision Pro. It weighs in one gram increments, is accurate (I checked it at the low, middle and high end of its range with known reference weights), has a very easy to use tare function, cleans easily, is easy to read, easily switches units, and is reasonably priced. What more could you want?
I mentioned it in the note linked above (along with a recommended piece of tracking software), but these are also very useful for general kitchen use even if you aren't watching your weight. Dry measurements are mostly useless if you are baking. A cup of flour can easily be off by 10% day to day if you use dry measurements. I've converted most of the recipes I use, and all of the ones I create, to weight measurements. This turns out to be common practice in Europe and most recipes there are weight-based these days. Many American cookbooks are moving to weight based measurements.
Our unit developed a display problem when it was about 14 months old this week. I immediately ordered a replacement - we can't live without one. Today I got in touch with the Eat Smart office in New Jersey. The scale has a two year warranty and they simply asked for my address and are shipping one today. Sukie and I can get in the way waiting for a weigh. I'm incredibly impressed by such great customer service along with the scale itself.
If you need one you won't be disappointed with the Eat Smart Precision Pro.
You can pick up one of these on Amazon for about $25
They also make great gifts for anyone embarking on weight loss or someone who is trying to become a more consistent cook or baker.
Go a few bucks more and get one with a wall wart; having a scale plugged into the kitchen has entirely changed my cooking and eating habits for the better. There is never any question about whether the scale will work; it is always *right there* and always has power.
Posted by: bbum | May 25, 2012 at 19:58
The batteries go about a year on this, which is completely acceptable to me.
We don't have many plugs in our kitchen and I really hate wall warts of any type - portable is better for me in this application.
Posted by: steve | May 26, 2012 at 12:22