image taken from Jen Picicci's post (same as referenced above)
I first started weighing myself when I was fourteen years old. It was after I had already lost a bunch of weight (that first bout of dieting that I shared in my story). I became immediately hooked on it, and with its influence, I managed to drop another 5-6 pounds that I really didn't need to lose. I think my parents took it away after that and hid it somewhere for a while.
It re-emerged a couple years later when other members of my family wanted it out for use. At first I avoided it like the plague, knowing that I was heavier than I wanted to be at the time. I'd see it sitting there, mocking me, but couldn't bring myself to witness the evidence of my "horrible" weight gain. When I finally faced it, I was dully horrified. And began the worst mission of my life: LOSE ALL OF THE WEIGHT. I still have the diary entry I wrote after that weigh-in, where I frantically vow to quit eating. I weighed myself daily for a couple months and lost way more weight than any person my size should ever lose.
My parents intervened, the scale left again. I stayed away from scales for a few years after that, by my own choice after the initial intervention. Because I did gain weight and I didn't want to see it. Some time in college, after I had been having too much fun and eating dining hall food for a couple years, I had actually gained a little more weight than I needed. I forced myself to weigh myself for the first time in years and, once again, was completely horrified. I started an intense diet again. This time around it was much healthier than my high school weight loss missions because I was much better informed about nutrition and was eating lots of vegetables and some lean protein. But I was eating entirely too few calories. The scale definitely approved. And I became addicted to its approval once again. I lost too much weight and had zero energy. I knew that I needed to gain some weight and did so, to a certain point.
Sloppiness of the picture aside, my arm and shoulder are scary. But that scale was cheering me on.
But the scale remained. I was at a healthy-enough weight, but on the thin side of what my body prefers. I wasn't as obsessive about what I was eating, but I was still obsessive. As in, I would allow myself to have chocolate or candy... in amounts like 5 chocolate chips per day. The rest of my food was pretty much vegetables, lean protein, and maybe a carb serving like an oatmeal packet or 100 calorie bag of popcorn. I kept an estimate of daily calories in my head at all times. That kept the scale happy. And, honestly, at the time I felt like I was pretty happy. I did eat a lot of low calorie food and generally wasn't hungry. I was only responsible for my own meals and it was definitely manageable to live this way.
College ended and I spent my last summer living at home. That fall I moved into my first apartment with my now husband. I had already gained a little weight over the summer, as I tend to do when living at my parents' house. And now I couldn't resort to usual micromanaging of my food intake. I was cooking for the two of us and there was also food in the house that I didn't usually keep around. I don't think the scale ever even made out in this apartment. I planned on pulling it out at some point, once I had lost a little of my summer weight. I simply didn't want to face it before that. It took a while to lose that summer weight because of my newly sharing lifestyle, and by the time I did (I only did because I became so extremely busy with grad school and practically didn't eat all day when I was gone), I had gotten used to not needing the scale.
And I haven't used one since. I've gone up a good amount in weight since then, some of that is probably a good thing, and some of it I would like to lose. I am not willing to obsess over those few pounds anymore; I'd rather be happy. That said, I am working on cutting back on those tasty things that aren't doing anything for me nutrition-wise. Everything in moderation.
I don't really know how much I've gained, and I don't really care. I have gotten a lot more into lifting weights since my "thin days" so at least some gain has been in muscle. I eat wayyyyy more than I did in college and grad school (I'm talking double, maybe more). Clearly, my metabolism is much happier now that I'm not as thin. Which is A LOT more fun.
Not the best quality pic, but it's recent. :-)
I get that sometimes we need something to measure fitness progress, but there are methods other than using a scale. How are your jeans fitting? How much more can you lift at the gym? How much longer can you run? How many more servings of vegetables are you eating?
Of course, for some people, weigh in's are what gets them the life-changing results they need for their health. And there are some people who manage a perfectly healthy relationship with the scale. It lets them know when to scale back and doesn't tell them anything more than that.
But if you hear any of those extra thoughts, the ones that tell you that you're not good enough unless you weigh ____ or that you shouldn't eat because the scale said you bad, then give it up. It won't solve everything, but it is a good step in the direction of accepting yourself and removing a trigger for negative thinking.
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