For as far back as I can remember I've worried about my weight. Whether I was thin or as big as I've ever been a day didn't go by where I didn't spend some time and some energy fretting over how much I weighed. I got on the scales every morning, every night and every other time I went into the bathroom. (Still do). The numbers on the scales dictated my moods. The numbers validated what I was feeling about myself. Random, ordinary numbers on the face of my biggest foe pryed themselves into my fibers, needled away at my confidence, eroded my worth. Numbers. Just numbers on a scale - in my mind were my complete and total identity. (Still is).I am not a daughter or a friend. I was never a wife or a team member or an employee. And now I'm not a mom, a church member or an alto in the choir. I am a number on a scale. And I hate that. But for the life of me I cannot separate myself the human being from myself - the number. Recently I quit looking at the number and where does that leave me? Without identity? Stuck on the last number I saw - which was awful? You bet. Hello, my name is #265. Nice to meet you.
Where did this crazy way of thinking come from? I don't know. I wished I was as fat now as I thought I was back in high school. I remember clearly worrying about my weight so much so that I would go a couple of days without eating a bite, ever checking in with the scale to see how great I was doing. But then I would have some water and the scale would shoot right back up to where I started and I would be devistated. So then I would forego even water in hopes that the scale would give me a number I could live with. But looking back, I see that what I was doing and how I was thinking was just short of insanity. I really, really saw myself as fat. I thought I was fat and I hated myself for it. And then when the scales moved in the wrong direction it was all over but the crying. I plunged deeper and deeper into unhealthy behaviors and skewed opinions on food and it's purpose. My body image was distorted and I looked into the mirror and saw fat.
Being a teenager was hard. But I'm sure it was hard for anyone who lived through their teen years as well. I don't know exactly what my deal was and why I was so sad but I was. And my fat feelings started around that time. (It's this sort of stuff that an eating disorder treatment facility like the one portrayed on that TV show I spoke of earlier would come in handy, I suppose). In reality (and I can see it now...) I was a chunky kid growing up, pudgy or 'thick'. I remember about age 14 that I got taller and shed a lot of that 'baby fat'. Looking back what I see of me was a tallish girl for my age, about 5'6 with some curves and a little meat on my bones. But I was not fat by any logical standard (again, it's easy to see that now...). I was blessed with my mother's figure - she calls it having child bearing hips, and I had a little pudge on my belly and my rear-end was proportional to my hips. I was a size 7-8. So what's the problem? (I'd give my right arm to be that size now!!) The problem was many of the other teen girls were a size 2 with flat butts (popular at the time), pencil thin with no meat and any bones anywhere. For me I didn't measure up. Throw in a boyfriend who would say "you have a great body - if you would just tone it up a little" and the occasional "are you going to eat that?" and my still developing teenager mind started to obsess over food, size, my body, weight and the dreaded scales.
There's a lot more teenager junk and I don't suppose I'm ready to start talking about it all just yet but I developed plenty - I mean plenty of bad behaviors early in my teen years. Drugs and 'diet' pills started early for me and drinking was a big one that, just like my eating habits, stuck around and caused lots of problems. (starting to get anxious about clicking on "publish post" again...). But unlike my eating disorder, I finally got the drinking under control - praise God! I'm going to write about drinking one day - just not today. The bottom line is that I've had a few addictions, hard addictions to conquer and I know it all lends itself to where I find myself this very day. I know how to practice an addiction. I know. But, and I'm blessed to say, food is the last big one. It's by far been the hardest. I'm trying now, again, for the umpteenth time to overcome it and that's why I'm sitting here this day and writing about it.
I HATE that stupid scale - and it can kiss my fat butt. It calls out to me saying stuff like "you know you want to get up here" and "step on up, let me ruin your whole day". When it's really being mean it'll say "get your number so I can tell you how much you suck. You blew it, fat ass - you might as well go eat everything in the house. Loser." I give that voice to my scale. It's easy for me to see that as I sit here typing. It's not easy at all when I step on the scale after every bowel movement - thinking "that was a big one, surely I just lost a pound?" Just like that mound of clothes I talked about yesterday, one day I'm going to send that scale packing and I will finally be something more than a number. No more will I let that hateful instrument of measure tell me what day I'm going to have or what kind of mother I can be. I will no longer let the scales be a measurement of my success or my failure. After all, wieght is just a number, right? I'll donate that thing to Goodwill with that last bag of fat clothes that's going over there also. But for right now... (the hard part, and part of my eating disorder) I'll keep my evil, dear old friend, the scale, and I will struggle not to get on it. I haven't gotten on it yet despite the curiosity to know 'the number'. But I can't throw it out yet - I just cannot. I'm just not ready to have a bathroom with out a scale. As stupid as that sounds.
It is for the freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1. (Scales included!)
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