Convert pounds to stone and pounds instantly. Includes a full three-way converter (lbs, stone, kg), conversion table from 100 to 300 lbs, and weight loss tracking guidance.
The conversion from pounds to stone is one of the most commonly needed weight conversions for UK users. Whether you have been given your weight in pounds at a US-format clinic, seen your weight on an American scale, or are converting fitness tracker data that displays in lbs, understanding how to express this in stones and pounds is valuable.
There are exactly 14 pounds in 1 stone. This makes the conversion straightforward:
To also convert to kilograms, multiply the total pounds by 0.453592:
| Pounds (lbs) | Stone & Pounds | Kilograms (kg) |
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The UK and US both use pounds as a unit of measurement, but there is a key cultural difference: in the UK, heavier weights — particularly body weight — are typically expressed in stones and pounds. Americans use pounds exclusively and are unfamiliar with the stone as a unit. This creates confusion when British people visit American fitness websites, apps, or read American diet books.
An American fitness app might display your goal weight as 168 lbs, which means nothing to most British users instinctively. Converting: 168 ÷ 14 = 12 stone exactly. That is a number that immediately resonates with a British audience.
Similarly, an American doctor's office record stating a patient weighs 220 lbs translates to 15 stone 10 lbs — immediately recognisable as an overweight range for most average-height British adults.
For food and grocery items, the UK now mandates metric labelling — products are sold and labelled in grams and kilograms. The US still uses pounds and ounces for food products. A US recipe calling for 1 lb of flour requires 453.6 grams — just under half a kilogram. This is why UK-US recipe conversion is a persistent challenge for home cooks.
When tracking weight loss, pounds offer finer granularity than stones. Because 1 stone = 14 lbs, moving down a stone is a significant milestone. Many UK dieters prefer tracking in pounds week-to-week because seeing "down 2 lbs this week" provides more frequent positive feedback than waiting to drop a whole stone. Slimming World and Weight Watchers in the UK commonly use pounds for weekly tracking while setting goals in stones.
A healthy rate of weight loss is generally 0.5 to 1 lb per week. At this rate:
The pound (lb) derives from the Latin libra pondo, meaning "a pound by weight." The abbreviation "lb" comes from libra, while "pound" comes from pondo. The stone as a unit of 14 pounds was formalised in England in 1350, originally used for trading wool. At that time, different regions used different stone weights — the London stone was 14 lbs for wool, the stone for meat was 8 lbs, and the stone for glass was 5 lbs. The Weights and Measures Act of 1835 standardised the stone at exactly 14 pounds throughout England and Wales.
Despite the UK's official adoption of the metric system and the legal requirement to use kilograms in trade, the stone remains entirely legal for informal use and is deeply rooted in British cultural identity. Opinion polls consistently show that the majority of UK adults still think about their own body weight in stones and pounds rather than kilograms.