Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Yes, I did receive an e-mail from the company about a month after my purchase to rate their product on Amazon. Ok. Why not? They explained they are a small American company. It only takes a moment of my time and I really don't mind. I for one, almost ALWAYS check out reviews on Amazon before going to the store to make my purchase on a product. So now for my review. As others have said, this is a nice looking scale. It came well packaged and was ready to go right out of the box. I found it very easy to set up as well (one thing I was worried about was entering my height as I have a 0.5" increment in my height, but the scale lets you enter height in 0.5" increments - hooray). In the past 6 months, through proper diet and regular exercise I've lost 43 lbs. I became curious about what my body fat % (I had it tested years ago at a health fair with an electronic hand held device to find I was about 34% -boo) might be and found this scale and took the plunge after reading other reviews. I have not had my body fat tested in many years and especially not since shedding some major pounds but I had an "idea" of what I might be based on some calculations where you measure different parts of your body, enter your age, gender, height, etc... I thought I was about 20% before ordering the scale but wasn't really sure. (If it helps any reviewers I'm a 30 year old female, 5'5.5" tall, and currently weigh 125 lbs). When I first received my scale, I decided not to set myself as athlete, based on the other reviews, though I consider myself a somewhat avid exerciser now. I stepped on my old scale 3 times and the new scale 3 times. Perfect match. I got six identical weights. Check. Next I waited to find out my body fat % - I got a reading of 19.9% - keeping in mind from what I read that electronic body fat testing can have a margin of error of about +/-3% (I don't know what the particular margin of error is for THIS scale, but this is in general for most electronic devices). I was already prepared to except the fact that this number might not be correct. I recorded the number and continued to weigh myself in the morning (for accurate weight) and in the evening (for body fat%) and began tracking the number. I found that the scale was consistent in body fat% readings only changing the number by about 0.1% or none each day. Hooray! All I want is something to track my PROGRESS with and this scale fits the bill. I'm happy to say that in one month, I managed to get my body fat% down to 19.3%. It seems reasonable to me with the work I've put in to lose 0.6% in one month. Also, muscle mass went from 39.9% to 40% - one of my body builder friends tells me it is difficult for a woman to put on more than 5 lbs of muscle in a year, so I don't expect this number to change much either (though I do lift heavy weights 3x a week). As another reviewer noted when you are looking at your percentages - yes, they will total more than 100 when you look at body fat, muscle mass and total body water. That is because you have some water in your muscle and your fat as well so this water technically gets counted in your muscle and your fat and then all by itself (i.e. it gets counted TWICE), thus explaining why the totals are greater than 100%. Hope this makes sense. So overall, I'm very happy with my purchase. It's a sleek-looking, fun gadget that helps me track my progress as I work towards my long-term health goals. I also like the fact that you can just step on it and stand there and it will come on. No tapping, no buttons to push. Just step on it and get your info. Awesome. My husband also likes the scale and his numbers seem to be fairly accurate as well. The scale is "smart" enough to know who is stepping on it. Because my husband outweighs me by about 50 lbs when he steps on it, it automatically knows "user 2" is on the scale as opposed to when I step on it, it automatically figures out I'm "user 1". This might be an issue if two members of the household have near identical weights, but otherwise, you just step on it and it's ready! No switching to your user self number or anything. Ingenious! I originally had trouble deciding whether to get this scale or keep my old scale and purchase the hand held body fat tester by Omron. Well, I've never tried the Omron product, but am happy with this scale. It gets the job done and I wouldn't hesitate to buy it again. UPDATE 5/3/13 I was reminded to update my review after someone left a comment. My scale is still running on the original batteries. I finally reached my goal of 6 pack abs around 17.5% body fat on my scale. I then got pregnant and didn't use the scale for that period (as recommended by the manufacturer), but hubby did. I'm now 9 months post partum and am back to 19% bodyfat and close to my goal of returning to six pack abs. Last month I went to a health fair and got to use the Omron hand held device for bodyfat%. The Omron was 1.5% higher than my scale. But again, I care less about exact numbers and more about trends and consistency, which this scale delivers! Recommended.