Back Away from the Scales!

If you are anything like me your relationship with the bathroom scales is one that is fraught with tension. One day they are your best friend, the next your worst enemy.

I must admit that over the years I have owned a few sets of scales. Some I have intentionally smashed to bits in fits of dieting rage, others have simply given up the ghost after having me stand on them multiple times a day. Some I deliberately set to be 5 kilograms lighter just to bolster my dying self-esteem (it never worked - I couldn't deceive myself).

Yes, I was one of those people who was obsessed with the number, the amount I weighed. I'd weigh myself before my morning pee, and again after just to double check that the extra kilo I'd gained in the last week wasn't fluid (urine) retention. I'd weigh myself in a variety of outfits, and of course in my birthday suit. I would weigh myself at the start and finish of a day and several times in between just for good measure. I would even go so far as to weigh myself in kilograms, pounds and stones just to see which was nicer! Stones of course! Yes, 12 stone sounded MUCH more respectable than 90 odd kilos!

Muscle Man: "What did the scales say today babe, same as an hour ago?"

Me: "cough, splutter, gulp...12"

Muscle Man: "What was that babe?, Did you say twelve? 12 what?"

Me: "On the twelve days of Christmas my true love gave to me" - cue me exiting room.

Muscle Man is brilliant at maths (I know, not just a set of muscles) and would come in 5 minutes later and think how clever he was that he had figured out my weight in kilograms! Damn him!

I guess you could say that the scales had a sick hold over me. I'd walk past the bathroom and see them taunting me, daring me to jump on and check if the fact I skipped breakfast and taken my shoes off had fashioned into weight loss yet. Being a gluten for punishment I would walk in and delicately place one foot on the scale followed by the other, holding my breath I'd peer down at the display window and pray for a miracle. The minute I saw the number flash up on the screen I'd feel instant despair and then spend the next half an hour berating myself for jumping on in the first instance and the rest of the day berating myself for being so fat to begin with.

The thing was though, I was never really doing anything that warranted the scales going down. Up, yes, down - no. More often than not I was not adequately modifying my food intake, and I was lucky to lift a finger, let alone my whole arse. I was very much of the mindset that one failed meal meant the entire day was an absolute right off and I may as well visit a few drive-thru's to console myself.

When I joined Jenny Craig the first time, I remember walking out after my first official 'weigh in' and sheepishly admitting to Muscle Man what the big digit was. I cried. The road to slenderness was just insurmountable. The scales were my enemy and had never even provided a glimmer of hope that we could be friends, even acquaintance's was pushing the limit in my mind. We had such an unhealthy relationship that I couldn't possibly imagine ever finding success standing on their harrowing surface. Yes, I was doomed. The only answer was to turn to my good friend, Baskin and Robbin's.

Years later when I joined Weight Watchers for the first of gazillion attempts with their program, I was again shocked to see the result. I had a momentary glimmer of hope as I stood on the old style chemist scales. You know the ones with the little weights that have to be slid along and balanced. Well, in my desperation I only looked at the number the smaller weight was resting on. 60kgs, EUREKA! I knew all along I suffered from Body Dysmorphic thing-a-mi-gigga and in that brief second I'd been thin all along. I was on top of the world, naturally within seconds I came crashing down when my flamboyant "leader" advised that the two weights combined put my weight at 85kgs. Off to Baskin and Robbin's.

I have come to believe that scales are evil. Even now some days I'll apparently weigh a kilo less than the day before, or reverse. I know that when a certain time of the month approaches and I grow horns and breathe fire, my weight can go up by as much as 3 kilos for that week. So on-top of being moody, hormonal, teary, angry, happy, hysterical at any given moment I also have to live with the fact that for a whole week I'm as bloated as a life preserver and it's not the kind of bloating a good old fart could fix. No this bloating requires that bloody Slim N Lift Supreme!

It's for this reason (inconsistent numbers, not my bloating) that I think it is really so important to use other measures to track your success. The way clothes fit and feel, the way your skin glows after exercise, the way your body moves more freely and one of my favourites, the measurements lost as the weight slowly, but surely comes off.

In an earlier blog entry I gave my initial body measurements. I started recording my measurements on June 14, 2006. Over the past 23 months I have lost a combined total of 113 cm's off my waist, hips, left and right upper arm, left and right thigh, and my left and right shin. That figure would probably be up around the 150cm mark had I measured my bust (another classic lie) but at the time it was really just far to distressing seeing the shrinkage in the one place I wanted excess fat!

I tried to comprehend 113cm's of extra size on myself the other week but all I could think of was 3.7 thirty centimetre rulers standing one atop the other and it reminded me of a liquorice strap, so naturally I went and ate something instead.

It is also very heartening that so many of my clothes are now too big rather than too small and some I could use on my next camping trip as a sleeping bag or tent. Even better add a spinica and rope and I have pants which would make an excellent sail. It's great to look in the mirror and only see a small muffin top these days rather than the whole bakery.

Now days I only stand on the scales intermittently and usually I am ready with a stash of carrot sticks to console me rather than the ice-cream. Oh not to mention I am always armed with the mental come back - Muscle weighs more than fat you know ;o)