I will admit to being afraid of scales—the kind that weigh you, not the ones on a snake. And so my first reaction to the idea I'd be getting a free body-scanning scale with a Factor prepared meal kit subscription was something akin to “Oh no!”

It's always bad or shameful news, I figured, and maybe nothing I don't already know. Though, as it turned out, I was wrong on both points.

Factor is, of course, the prepared meal brand from meal kit giant HelloFresh, which I've tested while reviewing dozens of meal kits this past year. Think delivery TV dinners, but actually fresh and never frozen. Factor meals are meant to be microwaved, but I found when I reviewed Factor last year that the meals actually tasted much better if you air-fry them (ideally using a Ninja Crispi, the best reheating device I know).

Especially, Factor excels at the low-carb and protein-rich diet that has become equally fashionable among people who want to lose weight and people who like to lift it. Hence, this scale. Factor would like you to be able to track your progress in gaining muscle mass, losing fat, or both. And then presumably keep using Factor to make your fitness or wellness goals.

While your first week of Factor comes at a discount right now, regular-price meals will be $14 to $15 a serving, plus $11 shipping per box. That's less than most restaurant delivery, but certainly more than if you were whipping up these meals yourself.

If you subscribe between now and the end of March, the third Factor meal box will come with a free Withings Body Comp scale, which generally retails north of $200. The Withings doesn't just weigh you. It scans your proportions of fat and bone and muscle, and indirectly measures stress levels and the elasticity of your blood vessels. It is, in fact, WIRED's favorite smart scale, something like a fitness watch for your feet.

Anyway, to get the deal, use the code CONWITHINGS on Factor's website, or follow the promo code link below.

Is It My Body

The scale that comes with the Factor subscription is about as fancy as it gets: a $200 Body Comp scale from high-tech fitness monitoring company Withings. The scale uses bioelectrical impedance analysis and some other proprietary methods in order to measure not just your weight but your body fat percentage, your lean muscle mass, your visceral fat, and your bone and water mass, your pulse rate, and even the stiffness of your arteries.

To get all this information, all you really need to do is stand on the scale for a few minutes. The scale will recognize you based on your weight (you'll need to be accurate in describing yourself when you set up your profile for this to work), and then cycle through a series of measurements before giving you a cheery weather report for the day.

Photograph: Withings

Withings

Body Comp Smart Scale

Your electrodermal activity—the “skin response via sweat gland stimulation in your feet"—provides a gauge of stress, or at least excitation. The Withings also purports to measure your arterial age, or stiffness, via the velocity of your blood with each heartbeat. This sounds esoteric, but it has some scientific backing.

Note that many physicians caution against taking indirect measurements of body composition as gospel. Other physicians counter that previous “gold standard” measurements aren't perfectly accurate, either. It's a big ol’ debate. For myself, I tend to take smart-scale measurements as a convenient way to track progress, and also a good home indicator for when there's a problem that may require attention from a physician.

And so of course, I was petrified. So much bad news to get all at once! I figured.

Anyway, it didn't quite turn out that way. Sure, I got some news that wasn't news at all: I am no longer at my high school wrestling weight. I am, at 6'1", on the wrong side of 200 pounds to gain any particular congratulations about my body mass index. My body fat percentage is too high, and my complementary lean muscle percentage therefore too low. The smart scale, like my smart doctor, would like me to go to the gym and to eat a bit more like Jack Sprat than his wife.

This is the scolding I expected. But the rest of the numbers were actually a bit heartening. Whatever the raw numbers, the visceral fat index known to indicate all sorts of terrible troubles fell in the OK range. So did my stress levels, my water content, my bone mass, and my pulse rate. My arterial stiffness was seemingly precisely age-appropriate. There's hope for me yet, it would appear.

The stats amounted to a bit of encouragement that the situation remained quite retrievable. And while the granular detail about fat-muscle percentage wasn't flattering, the detail gives me multiple paths for improvement.

It caused me to think about a friend of mine, who complained daily that his scale showed no improvement even though he quit drinking and has been hitting the gym. Clearly, he looks fitter, but he had no means of measuring his progress. He's been losing heart. He probably needs this scale, or another smart scale a bit like it. But at least in my case, the ability to gain ground multiple ways amounts to its own form of inspiration.

Note that the raw information I described comes free with the scale, but to get full access to all the health data and improvement plans Withings offers, you'll need the company's Withings+ subscription. At a cost of $8 to $10 a month, the subscription service will offer advice on what to do with the new data points you've been offered, as well as some more sophisticated health trend data.

Factor meals aren't free, if that subscription is part of what helps you meet your fitness and wellness goals. A gym membership also, presumably, costs. Have you considered hard labor?

In any case, the one thing that's free is the scale, after your first few weeks of the meal kit. To get access to the deal, use the promo code CONWITHINGS or click on the button below. Take note that it's a “while supplies last” kinda deal. Which is to say, sooner is better than later if you want to ensure availability.

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