The Scale

Thanks again for all your wonderful comments, those left here and on My Space, Facebook and through simple emails. The support means the world to me and helps keep me going!

As I got on the scale Friday morning for my weigh-in, I realized I have a very different relationship with that thing these days. Women, especially, are often depicted in cartoons or on tv as having a very tempestuous relationship with the seemingly innocuous bathroom scale. It is "supposed" to elicit feelings of fear, hatred, dread and failure. This is drilled into our heads by popular culture from the day we are old enough to understand it (younger and younger as the generations pass).

Let's take another look at that. For many years I didn't even own a scale simply because the ones that will weigh me aren't found in your everyday Walmart or Target; and I never had hundreds of dollars to spend on finding out just how big I really was. I still don't really know my heaviest weight, which peaked around 4 or 5 years ago. I know it was scary, because I know what I weigh now. I recently went back through the family portraits Erich and I always had taken around Christmastime each year and wow - it was an eye opener. And if you're wondering - I haven't decided yet when to share that number. It's still a source of shame to me, that I let things get this out of control. But someday, I hope it will be a measuring stick as to how far I've come and I'll be proud to share it with the world.

Ebay is a wonderful thing and my husband found a very reasonably priced scale for those of us who don't fit into the normal mold of "this is the biggest anyone ever gets so this is as high as we make the numbers on the scales go". It's the same one Ruby Gettinger has! LOL! Whenever I see her climb onto hers, I always know exactly what's going through her mind: How much have I lost this week? And if it isn't as much as it should be, how can I change it?

That's the big shift in my thinking. I'm not afraid of the thing anymore, I don't dread getting on it. In fact, I look forward to it. It lets me know in black and white how I'm progressing. Or not progressing. There's usually a reason if it doesn't move the way I want it to and I can learn something from that. I am sometimes surprised (8 pounds in one week?? Gaining 1??) but I always try to go back through my food diary and figure out what I did wrong or right. Sometimes there's no good explanation, but I'm learning to live with that. The scale is still there to help me in this journey and I appreciate its objectivity and cold, hard truth. I need that; we all do.

By the way, if you haven't heard - I lost 4 more pounds last week! Here's what the scale has to say:

Start date: Feb. 10
Weigh-in March 13: 4 lbs. lost
Total lbs. lost: 24
Weeks till appt. with surgeon: 6

I love that scale. Even when it told me I gained a pound. LOL!