Compact, portable alternative to a bathroom scale
I'm not a complete health nut, but I do like to monitor my body weight. I used to weigh myself daily on a cheap (read: not entirely accurate) bathroom scale.
Now that I'm traveling, it's completely impractical to carry a bathroom scale in my luggage.
Is there any sort of compact, light-weight alternative? I'm aware of various hanging luggage scales. I expect I could find one compact enough for my needs, then find some way to hang from it, but they tend to have a maximum capacity of around 100lbs (45kg). Unless I lose a lot of weight, that won't help me.
I also realize I could pop into neighborhood pharmacies or gyms, or use the scales at other locations. But for the purpose of this question, I'm looking for a portable option I can take with me.
I would also be interested in any reliable tricks to calculate my body weight by use of weight distribution, and a hanging luggage scale.
So: What is the most compact device I can take on my travels to reliably weigh myself?
Best Answer
So, there are travel scales like this one (that was the top advert on a google search for 'travel scales'). That is, as Ankur Banerjee implies in the comments, roughly the same size as an iPad.
As you say, if you have several hanging scales and can hang them (from a door jam) and then suspend yourself the total weight shown will be your weight.
Alternatively you could make a makeshift set of balance scales. Get a plank or something uniform, flat and long and put some sort of pivot point under it. Stand on one side then put stuff on the other side until it's heavier than you and lifts up your side of the scale. Weigh the stuff on the other side with your hanging scales. Obviously not terribly accurate (and it does depend on where you place stuff on the plank -- see here).
I've a feeling there's a way to calculate change in weight using the hanging scale if you have a known starting point but I can't work out how to do it at the moment. Something the negates the bulk of your weight so you can measure the difference.
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