Wahoo Balance Scale Review

As a woman, it's ingrained in my DNA to instinctively fear just one thing more than spiders, snakes and clowns.

The scales.

The body coach calls them ‘the sad step’, I think of them more as a torture device. An evil machine that calls me into the bathroom to make me miserable.

Until now.

Before we start, no I haven’t lost a ton of weight recently and now love to jump on the scale to show off. My weight fluctuates and I can’t help but get obsessed with the numbers, but the Wahoo scale has given me a tool to help...

Set Up

The Wahoo Balance scale has a very simple set up, which is great, especially for personal trainers, who may use the scale to track their clients - as there’s not that big intimidating amount of time setting up which can be daunting for a nervous client.

A simple snap of the back to add your batteries and a pop to the app store (metaphorically of course) to download the Wahoo Balance’s very own app ‘Wahoo Wellness’ and you’re ready.

Adding Users

A great feature of this scale - particularly for those in the leisure industry, is that the scale can hold the data of up to 20 separate users. This means trainers can add clients to the scale to track the weight. To add a user is simple, using the app you answer generic questions such as gender and date of birth. It is important to note that in order for the scale to recognise each individual, you need to enter a rough weight - this can be in a range of 10 kg of your actual weight, so it’s not hard to guess!

As a PT, this feature is great because you and your clients can download the app and have your progress graphed. A PT can easily open the app and swap between clients as and when they need to, all from one app and one scale.

Recording Data

Recording data using the balance scale is simple. In fact, you don’t actually even need to have your device and the app with you. Simply step on the scale and it will automatically detect your user, the display then shows your user initials to confirm who is present. If it’s not you scroll until you find your user! The scale then records your weight and BMI. This is stored on the scale itself and can be downloaded to the app at a later date.

Tracking your weight

This is the part I found most useful for my phobia of weighing myself - the way your weight is displayed. The Wahoo app downloads your weight entries into a graph. Here you can visibly see your weight, rise, or drop.

Why does that make the scale less frightening? Because it shows you the bigger picture. The graph is broken into the last 7 days, 30 days and 365 days. Now what this means is that you can focus on your weight across a larger amount of time, allowing a bad (or hormonal) week, to be compared easily with the rest of the month. Instead of being disheartened by readings that aren't perfect, you can contextualise that anomaly and look forward to putting it right next week - or at least trying!

Another good thing - the 7 day reading encourages you to weigh yourself only once every seven days. So for those who become obsessed with scales it tries to create a healthier relationship with weight.

BMI

As a personal trainer, I tend to sideline BMI. Why? Because muscle weighs more than fat of course! A person with under 10% body fat and a full on 8 pack can come out with an overweight BMI, believe me, I’ve seen it. However, as a ‘guideline’ it's a useful tool to measure whether your weight is healthy. Your BMI is stored with each time you enter you weight.

The weigh in:

• Easy to set up scales with up to 20 users.
• Simple and valuable data stored on the app and scale.
• Weight history stored in simple, easy to read graph.
• Auto - recognition. No fiddling around in the nude pressing buttons to find your user!
• BMI automatically calculated.

To ‘weigh things up’ here, I would recommend this scale as a simple, easy to use scale for multiple users that makes progress clear and less daunting.

If I could ask for anything more, it would be that the scales measured body fat. I’m very excited to see if Wahoo release a scale with this additional feature as this would be a game changer - especially for personal trainers!