New Scale Confusion

I just purchased a new scale because the old one was acting strange.  I got on it the other day and it said I had lost about 2 lbs.  That didn't seem right so I weighed myself again and this time it said I had gained about 2 lbs.  I tried again and got a totally different number.  I could not get the same number two times in a row so I gave up.  I thought maybe the batterie was going but I read the instructions and it said it came with a long life lithium battery.  Of course they way I abuse the thing who knows what a long life really is.  It also said it would give a low battery indicator if it was low so I don't think it was the battery.
Anyway, I was at the store tonight and they were having a sale on scales.  They had a really nice one with all the bells and whistles for about $20.  It measures body fat, hydration, muscle mass and bone mass as well as telling you how many calories you need to maintain your current weight and what your ideal weight is and how many calories you need to maintain that.
I brought it home and set it up.  It has an athletic mode and I put mine at 2 on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being the highest.  I got on it and it said I weighed 107.8.  My old scale said I weighed 108.8.  It said my body fat was 18.8%!  My old scale said 23% so someone is lying.  I don't understand about the hydration except that mine was good or the muscle and bone mass but it said to maintain my current weight I need to eat about 1550 calories a day.  It said my ideal weight was 120lbs and to maintain that I would need to eat about 1600 calories a day.  I couldn't believe it was that little of a difference.  Right now I get in about 1300 calories a day.  I added another scoop of protein powder and some fat so it is going up.  It was at about 1100 a day a few weeks ago.  I honestly didn't think I needed to eat so much.  I thought I would only need about 1200 calories a day to maintain 120lbs so that shows what I know.  Of course that was before I started riding my bike but that only burns about 150 calories an hour at a leisurely pace, which is what I do.
I am beginning to think the best idea is just to get rid of all the scales and forget about it all and just relax and let things happen.  It is starting to become too consuming to worry about.  I never thought I would have a problem eating too many calories.  
I am sure that I will gradually just naturally increase my caloric intake as I go along.  Maybe I am worrying about it too much, tracking my food and all that.  I am just so afraid of it getting out of hand again.  Maybe I need to take a break?  But when I took a break from tracking i kept losing weight and I felt i needed to know what I was working with.
I really didn't know how hard this would be and I was expecting it to be difficult but doable.  It still feels doable, just a little more involved then I thought.
I will probably show a weight loss this Sunday when I do my weigh in but at least I know that will be because of the different scales and hopefully not because I am losing more weight.  I really don't know if I am still losing weight or not because my scale has been so wacky so at least now I will know what is really going on.

Those calories seem a little high to me. What would it say if you changed the setting to a 1?

--g

Tazz
I have the same issue with scales.  Between the two I have and the one my doctor has, they can be 9 lbs different, and two readings from the same scale differ as well.  That's why I fell below the weight requirement for insurance.

I sure do like your idea of relaxing and let things work themselves out.  If we have energy, stay the same clothes size, have good labs and keep protein up, we're still much better than pre-surgery.

Take care

I may be wrong but I think expecting anything but weight from scales is asking for possibly incorrect information.  It has to just be a computer program that says if you are so tall and you weigh so much, this is probably your muscle, hydration, fat ratio.  I can see how it could work anyother way.

I just use the same scales, the same time of day and go by that.  The differences between scales can be time of day, clothes, and all that stuff.  There are special machines that measure body fat, etc.  If you are concerned about that, see if you can hook into one of those.  I know Curves measures my body fat and BMI monthly when they do my monthy weigh and measure.

I have a simple Tanita that I bought from Kohl's.  It measures weight, hydration and body fat.  I don't pay much attention to anything besides weight.  

It weighs the same as Kaiser and Weigh****chers, so I never have any surprises at either place.

Have you thought about getting weighed at your doctor's office, which would give you a baseline and help you to figure out, if your scale is inaccurate? Also, talking with a dietitian might help to give you a target amount of calories that you need to eat per day.

I just have digital scale but it is almost exactly the same as my PCP's scale. 

My NUT told me to try and eat 1800 calories a day!!!  What in the world was she thinking???  After I put my info into My fitclick.com it told me 1300 and that does sound more reasonable to me. 

According to myfitnesspal.com I should be consuming 1680 calories a day to help me gain half a pound a week.  It says I should consume 1420 calories I guess to maintain my weight.  Those numbers do seem high to me but since I have still been losing at 1300 calories a day it may be close to right.  I think that is taking into account my exercise, though.  For some reason I thought I would be living on about 1200 calories a day to maintain.  Funny how that seems like a lot now when in the past I am sure I ate that much just for breakfast.
I am not so concerned about the scale weighing me exactly right, only that it shows if I am going up or down so I can gauge how much I need to be eating to maintain a healthy weight.
The body fat percentage seems more accurate to me, though.  I always thought that 23% seemed high for weighing 106lbs.
The ideal weight function seems pretty accurate, too.  120lbs would be about right for me, although in the past when I weighed 135lbs people said I looked good and it was still in the normal BMI range.

 i agree with Gina  Id try  the 1 setting  .   U know were  a bit off " normal  " because our  bone mass is  large  due to  it needing to be to carry  100  lbs or more of weight around  ...  so  that throws off  " average  " calculations   WAY off  .... 

((((()))))  just Use Ur  common sense ...  U CAN learn  from EVERY device