If you would like to break up with your scale, but can’t seem to do it- I FEEL YOU. I am still shocked I don’t weigh in every morning. What is it with the scale, the morning weigh in, the very punishing evening weigh in, that keeps drawing us in? I found this topic poetry worthy.
My scale loving friends tell me about their love of numbers. If we are really honest with ourselves- is it really about numbers? If you love numbers can't you just count your steps into the bathroom? Count the seconds it takes to brush your teeth?
My health conscious friends say they need to do it “for their health.” Your weight isn't your health. Really.
When we wake up in the morning- do we really need an external tool to tell us how good or bad we should feel?
Why? What does this external tool- the scale- tell us about how we feel in our bodies, the status of our health or success, that we can’t feel by the visceral, inescapable experience of living in our body?
Our bodies offer endless insights into our wellbeing upon waking up. Our eyes are heavy from lack of sleep, and our feet are cold on the hardwood floors, our shoulder aches from that injury that never quite healed, and our legs can still feel that long walk on the trail we took with our sister on Sunday, and coffee sounds good right about now…
Our bodies are talking to us constantly, with much more detail than the scale. Are we responding to our body’s voice? Why is it easier to turn down the volume on your body’s voice and replace it with a number- a simple representation of “I am on track” or “need to watch it today.” I often wonder, do our bodies get annoyed with us as we hop on the scale, eyes nervously waiting to see our fate. Do they shout, "Hello! Do you see how hard I am working to talk to you?!"
We aren’t robots and that’s why scales and intentional weight loss efforts mostly do us harm. We are trying to make ourselves into machines with simple on and off switches. We are emotional people who survive and thrive in community with
others, in the blurring of lines, in the messy and complicated art of life.
Until we embrace that our eating and health are going to be defined by the same unpredictable, often messy patterns in the rest of our life, we are going to be trying to control the uncontrollable- and we will be miserable the whole time.
If you want to break up with your scale and do it….take a picture of how you choose to end the dysfunctional relationship. If you aren't convinced, perhaps you could "go on a break" and "see other people." You never know what's on the other side.
Want more inspo to ditch that scale? Check out this video by Rebecca Scritchfield, RD.
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