What Would Happen If I Looked At The Scale?

 

Is it weird for anyone else to realize that had I stayed married, my 16th wedding anniversary would be this Friday, November 17? Doesn’t that sound like a really long time as if I’m not old enough to have been married that long?!

I’ve talked about what my anniversary means after divorce in the past so we don’t need to discuss that part today.

What we need to discuss is this picture of me getting zipped into my wedding dress. I don’t think I’ve shared this picture before!

That’s me, 16 years ago (I was 23!) in the bridal room at my wedding venue. My bridal attendant was helping me to get ready and I was PRAYING that my dress would zip. Heather took this picture, I remember that!

Have I told you what happened only two weeks prior to my wedding day? About how the seamstress needed to remove the cups from the bra area of my wedding dress because I was suddenly busting out of the top? Yeah.

After 18 or so months with amenorrhea, my period had returned a couple of months before my wedding day. I gave up the scale a good six months prior to my wedding yet even so, I know that I had gained weight, my hormones were all over the place and my metabolism wasn’t normal yet.

I hate that fear of something not zipping. It’s a fear that I still get in my head from time to time and I always think back to this moment of fear with my wedding dress.

So the scale.

I gave up the scale SO LONG AGO. In fact, when we registered for all the household items during our engagement, a scale was never on my list.

While I’ve stepped on random scales from time to time over the years, I haven’t actually looked at the number on the scale in over three years.

I mean, I know my range. I know my unhealthy (too thin) range and I know the range I fall in when I am in a good place and I can tell these things without stepping on the scale.

For example, my unhealthy range has me looking sickly and I won’t get my period. My healthy range gives me my period every darn 28 days like clockwork plus my body has a cute shape again.

So who needs the scale to tell me right from wrong?

Yet still, should I know what I weigh? You know, for medical reasons? Like when I was in labor. They needed to know my weight for the epidural and I was yelling I don’t know my weight because I don’t look at the scale so you have to wait for my doctor to get here with my file?! Yeah, that wasn’t a good situation.

What would happen if I stepped on the scale and saw a number? Would I be fine with it? Would I easily move on from the situation?

I really don’t know.

I’m so out of touch with the whole process of stepping on and seeing/knowing a number. Sometimes I feel as though not checking in with the scale means I am letting myself go or ignoring that I am gaining several pounds over the years and not realizing. Like I am getting older and my metabolism must be slowing down and I should be monitoring that.

But that obviously makes no sense! I am still exercising, eating my balanced way and my clothes all fit!

I’ve lived my life for the past bunch of years so carefree by not thinking about  what the scale says. There’s no daily check in. No wondering about what I ate in relation to what the scale might say. No thinking in terms of being up, down, retaining water or gaining muscle.

Speaking of muscle, I do have some. Not a lot, but some. They say muscle weighs more so the scale will go up even when you are as fit as ever. Sometimes I think that’s a cop-out although in reality, it’s documented medical research.

Whatever.

Even if I saw a number I didn’t like on the scale, if it’s muscle or not, there isn’t a thing I could do about it anyway.

Seriously. I am truly at a point in my life where I couldn’t and just wouldn’t adjust anything about my diet and lifestyle.

I don’t see how I could eat less and I wouldn’t give up going out to eat as often as I do. If I want dessert, I won’t go without it and if I want a second plate of food because I am hungry, I am going to eat it.

Or like yesterday when I wanted hot chocolate, I’m going to drink it even though in my head I still think of the old, “but we don’t drink calories!”

Well, guess what, sometimes we do and it’s really okay because nothing is going to happen to you. This Dunkin Donuts hot chocolate was so good. If you want hot chocolate, you drink the real thing, not the 20 calorie pathetic packet.

I can’t force myself to run any more than I actually feel like running and I’m certainly not about to subject my personality to a MyFitnessPal/Whole 30/Paleo/Counting Macros type of thing.

It’s nice not to think about my next meal. It’s freeing to not care very much about what I eat. Of course I still eat healthy but I don’t need to think about it in order to do so. I don’t ever want to have to, either.

I look in the mirror and I’m always very happy with what I see.

Running is great, I am never injured (knock on wood) and feel strong. So why would the number on a scale matter at this point in my life? It shouldn’t yet still, sometimes I wonder about it.

I’m sharing this post to remind you that thought patterns like this never truly go away. I think we all have them from time to time so if you are waiting for that magical moment where you never think like this again, think again. It’s important to acknowledge that random thoughts about weight, weight loss, the scale, and whatever other term you want to insert here, will pop up and have you question things and you have to learn how to work through those moments in a healthy way. It’s not always easy (don’t talk to me during PMS) but it can be done.

I usually recognize these moments, call my mother to laugh about how ridiculous I sound and then go about my day.

It really goes back to this quote I shared recently.

 

Yet still, will I step on the scale soon and actually look at the number? I don’t know. Maybe? Maybe not.

[bctt tweet=”What would happen if I looked at the scale? #weight #bodyimage #health #scale #amenorrhea #disorderedeating #wedding” username=”cookiechrunicle”]

When was the last time you looked at the scale?

If you haven’t looked at the scale in years, do you think about?

Do you like hot chocolate? Which is your favorite kind?