I love the metric system. I think it's great and easy to use. So why do I still say I need to lose a stone. And not 6 kg

[cakeorwine]

I had to Google that as well.
I think metric is great. Easy to calculate with. But it's just ingrained to use stones and fraction of a stone for weight (when talking about body weight) and feet and inches for height.

But I use Kg and cm / metres for other stuff. And I just use miles for distance. But not yards.

Anyone else like this? A metric fan but still uses some Imperial and just in some circumstances?

yanbu
I prefer to imagine my weight in stones as well.

a much smaller number :o

when living in the us they used pounds - now that's a scary high number!

Yes. Can't get my head round shillings and sixpence old money but I work out weight in st and lb. Same with distance. It's miles not km. it's like I don't have a reference point for what a kilometre is, but I know roughly what a mile is, iyswim, but will also use cm for smaller things sometimes. But photo size is always in inches. And I prefer pints to litres 🫠

Well pounds is just a whole new level of thinking.

Which is why I love metric.

Now I've just got to lose 1 stone. But again, that just makes it into a round number for stones. Not kg. Maybe I should lose 8 kg instead. Just to get to a round number in Kg.

I tend to sway towards imperial

cook in pounds and ounces
drive in miles
run in miles
i weigh myself in stones

YANBU. I'm Gen X and very much a child of the metric era. Totally team metric unless you tell me the height of a human being is 1.7 metres and I'm all " Is that tall? Short? Taller than me?" If I stop to do the maths I know that a metre is longer than three feet and two metres is about 6'6" but I struggle to do better than that unless I settle down with a calculator and translate manually.

People my age were (allegedly) the last to use imperial and the first to go through school mainly on decimal money and metric measures

But I still think in feet and inches for height, stones and lbs for weight, and 'ambidextrous' for amounts in recipes, but drink pints. Journeys are in miles, but I run 5k, 10k, then 13.1 and 26.2 miles. Babies are lbs and oz. Clothes sizes in inches. Sweeties in quarters

So overall more imperial than metric

And my DC learned both systems in school

Pre-decimal money still makes sense to me (early imprinting, I suppose) but I think in pounds and new pence - but that change was a complete one, so of course everyone adopted it.

It’s bizarre how we use such a mish mash of imperial and metric in the U.K. isn’t it?

I weigh people in stones and pounds, but weigh all cooking ingredients and luggage in metric.
I can visualise a 10lb baby or a 500g pack of mince but never the other way around.

Distance is miles if driving, km if running.

I find it weird that supermarkets sell fresh milk by the pint but long life milk by the litre.

When my eldest was born, I bought a Tommee Tippee bottle prep machine along with bottles from the same brand - the machine is in fluid ounces but the bottles are in millilitres.

When my daughter was born (14 years ago) her weight was given in kgs as is standard. Although the first thing the midwife said was "do you want that in old money" 😂

Cars' fuel efficiency is definitely mpg not lpk

And speed is mph, not kph (though I can sort of do that one as a legacy from when I lived overseas).

Road signs in miles

Absolutely agree! I still think in stones and pounds (80kg could be anything - is that a healthy weight? Unhealthy? Who knows 🤷‍♀️), buy my milk in pints, still think of height in feet and inches, think of distance in miles… the list is endless really.

Im ok with either (and both), depending on context. But when I think about my weight, I’m so invested in the stones and pounds thing that I have to use kilos when I’m trying to lose it. Takes all the emotion and judgment out of it, and the kilos become just a number - I know it sounds bizarre, but it works for me

Totally agree with this. Try using kg to monitor your weight.

Imperial measures were much more intuitive, being based on everyday things. A foot was literally that - the length of a man’s foot. An inch was roughly the distance to the first knuckle on your thumb. An ell (cloth length) was the distance from the tailor’s nose to his extended hand at arm’s length, a pint was a reasonable size for one drink of beer, a furlong was the length of a furrow before you turned the plough horse round.
Metric weights bear no relation to human measurements. The metre is merely one ten millionth of the distance from the equator to the north pole, which is impossible to visualise.

Miles for distances I still prefer. I can work in km, but miles is just easier, agree about mpg.

Being American we talked weight in lbs and temps in F.
I still struggle a bit to know what temps mean in C compared to F.
Sometimes I revert to looking up F to be sure.

kg is the best weight metric now, the only one I pay attention to.

I had the same when mine was born 25 years ago.

I'm in my 60s so was brought up with imperial measures. Like many others, I use a combination.

Imperial for measuring people (weight, height, and eg waist sizes) but metric for weight of cats.

Imperial for most distances, but metric for small distances and for measuring furniture.

Imperial for cooking, but don't mind metric. Pints for milk but litres for orange juice.

Temperature can be either F or C when it's weather, but I prefer F when it comes to people.

I'm the same. I hate weight in kg.

Temperature is definitely Celsius.

I can do metres easily.

MPG for the car

It is weird. I use litres for filling up and if you said I had 4 gallons 3 fluid ounces, I would be confused.

I've struggled with weight all my life. I now weigh myself in Kg and track weight loss this way as the numbers are less triggering. I can see a 100g weight loss and visualise that better than 0.2lb which feels more pathetic and irrelevant.

The weight of the baby has to be announced to family in pounds and ounces.

It's the law.

Temperature is Celsius for me too…until it gets into high temperatures, then I can visualise how hot the 80s, 90s and into the 100s more easily for some reason.

I'm mid 40s so think for my generation it's that combination of being taught metric at school and imperial by older family members. My nan taught me to cook in LB and OZ but school taught me to measure in CM but long distances were with family in miles. My children understand KG and KM more than me.

I am glad I am not the only one that uses both systems though I certainly use imperial more .

I saw a hand wrote sign a few days ago on a boarded up shop that said
We have moved 300 yards that way ⬅
We are still trading
We are 300 meters that way ⬅

I have no idea why they would write that , just use one or the other or get the conversion correct

Temperature is celsius when cold (below zero) and fahrenheit when hot (over 100)

I’ve just turned 50 (as in yesterday lol) and many of us grew up with an unholy hybrid of imperial & metric. Science? Metric. Body weight? Imperial. In the pub? Imperial. Cookery? Both!

I remember our home ec teacher drilling us that 30g = 1oz, but to never mix the two (the way she’d yell made us think if you did your fish morney would explode).

I’ve just lost about 2 1/2st. Haven’t a scooby how much that is (or how to visualise it) in kg.
But for my business I only use metric when making up my various products, I can’t visualise what their volumes would be in Imperial measurements. Loose fruit & veg? Easy, 1kg is approx 2.2lb. And I can estimate the mass of the produce just by looking at it.

Make it make sense lol.

I am 56 . Conceptualise in Imperial always; still trying to train myself to cook in metric. So weird as I was only taught metric at school, but I had very much older parents who never thought in metric at all.

Plus my maths is rubbish so switching between the two is stressful.

Weight is always always in stones and pounds.

I am as far from a Brexiteer as it's possible to be, so the mental block is not that either!