Weigh In – Way Out!

For a two-year period in recent years, I decided I would stop weighing myself and let my ‘good sense’ and visual analysis (a.k.a mirror check) dictate if I was climbing up the scales or not. Bad idea.  Some 40 pounds later I was physically getting in my own way as I tried to turn over in bed. How does that happen?

A body scale has been my worst enemy at times in my life.  They say that the ‘numbers’ don’t matter but in my world, the numbers were everything.  From childhood, I was always considered obese to morbidly obese according to those little height-weight medical charts. To this day I still don’t agree with that chart. One of my favorite reads was “10 Reasons Why the BMI is Bogus!”. Who knows how true it is, but it made so much sense to me.

Anyway,  I’ve had an awful history with the scales.  In the past, it has literally dictated whether I had a ‘good’ day or a ‘bad’ day, all based on whether I was up a few or down a few pounds…. overnight.  Craziness!.  I remember waking up  on some days feeling all happy and ready for my day, I’d jump on the scales and if the number wasn’t right, it was like a switch flipped in my brain and I was instantly self-hating and miserable the rest of the day. Don’t judge, I know I’m not the only one who has done this.

It took years to understand the ‘psychology’ behind the emotions that were tied to the scales.  I had no understanding of being healthy in those days, I just wanted to be ‘thin’.  It seemed good things happened if you were thin… and could wear cute clothes.  What was I thinking…skinny isn’t even in my DNA so it was like I was fighting an invisible beast… and losing.

As I approached 50 years old, I decided that being healthy was the most important thing to me. Like I said in previous posts, I didn’t want to get any of the medical maladies that most times come from bad eating habits and lifestyle (and if I did get any it wouldn’t be because of my own bad choices).  I think I had decided by 50 that being overweight, fat, fluffy, whatever you want to call it, was just how it was going to be for me…. but…. I could choose to eat healthy, move more and at least make the effort.  So,  on July 6, 2016, I did just that, and soon I started to drop pounds.

I still weigh daily, and doing so has taught me a LOT!  At first, I saw the numbers going down pretty steadily every day.  It was invigorating to me!  I have a digital scales that weighs to the 10th pound so even 2/10 of a pound felt major. Using MyFitnessPal app, I could see the little graph moving down daily. Happy, happy, happy. Weighing daily made a nice little chart.

But then after a month or so, I noticed the some ‘up’ days happening.  Initially had an old reaction like… “WHATTT?!?  … this can’t be!“…. I had to tell myself, “Girl, just ‘keep doing what you are doing? Your goal is to be healthy, not skinny.”  That was hard for me. I had to train myself  (talk to myself) to not have a ‘reaction’ to a silly number, but I faced those up days with the attitude to just keep eating smart!

Sure enough, the numbers would drop a bit again, then maybe a day when it was up a bit, then down some more…. I was interested in the graph, it showed me that weight loss is not a smooth slide downward, it had ups and downs, some spikes, and some drops…but over the long haul there was weight loss. Just having a visual of the graph helped me to understand how the body loses weight, and that there are multiple factors that affect whether you are up or down…. hormones, exercise, sodium intake, humid weather… all kinds of things, not just food intake. I read that a body can gain as much as 10 lbs overnight given the certain reasons. Wow!  I am slowly releasing the scales-madness.  The scales is just a tool I use.

I’m at a good place now after all these years.  I still wish I weighed a less but I don’t stress about it anymore. If I maintain my good eating habits I figure my body will stop losing when it gets to where it’s supposed to be.  It’s not driving me and my emotions like it used to. I actually stress more about whether I’ve eaten enough good green veggies in a day.

I wonder sometimes if I am starting to think like a ‘normal weight healthy’ person who just eats good food so they are not hungry, to enjoy the taste, and stops eating when full.

Hmmm, that would be nice. #goals

******************************************************

* I was going to talk about some food choices here but decided to put it in the next post. A part of being healthy is getting enough sleep, so…. ‘good night!’

Author: iamjanl

❤️ Artist, Writer, and other things View all posts by iamjanl