Don’t Let the Scale Derail You

I peeked at the scale today.  Again.  I peeked yesterday, and the day before.  I fully admit it.  I’ll probably peek again tomorrow.

In the weight loss blogging world, there is a lot of talk about the scale.  For fairly obvious reasons.  For one, it’s a way to track our progress when it can’t be seen (i.e., clothes aren’t fitting differently yet, etc.).  For another, our doctors place quite a bit emphasis on it.  For another, so do we sometimes.

Many of us adhere to the belief that the actual number on the scale doesn’t matter as much as how we feel and how we live and the choices we make.  I’ve been one of them.  I’ve written numerous blog posts about it over the past couple of years.  But I don’t think I ever really took that to heart for myself.

As you all know, I’ve been struggling hard for the past year.  For the past several months, I’ve been working on trying to get myself back into that “zone” where I was losing consistently.  Several of the more recent weeks were weeks in which I would get my week started off on the right foot, but by the end of the week, I was floundering in a sea of ice cream and pizza (and most likely chunky Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookies, because they’re simply heaven on earth).

I know that part of it was that I was becoming discouraged.  Discouraged with myself and with weight loss in general.  I also had this deep fear that my luck had run out.  That no matter what I did or didn’t do, my weight would never go back down.  You see, that’s why I never really tried a major weight loss attempt until I started WW in 2006.  I didn’t think I could do it.  I proved myself wrong, obviously, but I was afraid that the magic was gone.  I was worried that no matter how hard I tried, I would either stay the same or keep gaining.  So, subconsciously, I made that happen.

What would happen is that in the middle of the week, I would peek at the scale.  I would see that I was up a couple of pounds from weigh in on Tuesday and get discouraged.  I would think “seriously, what’s the point if I’m just going to gain?”  Then proceed to eat all of the yummy goodness that my tummy could take.  Well, you know how that would turn out.  Every once in a while, I’d have a good week, but then would just screw it up again.

I’ve been back on plan now for, well, I really haven’t been paying attention.  Well over a week at least.  But I realized something.  Showing a gain in the middle of the week isn’t odd for me.  All through the process of losing 160+ pounds, I showed a gain in the middle of the week.  Sometimes those gains would stick around until the following weigh in.  Most of the time, they were gone and instead I had a healthy loss at my next weigh in.  But I apparently forgot.  I let my fear get in the way.  Maybe I was just looking for an excuse.

This week, I weighed in as usual on Tuesday showing a huge loss.  There was a big part of me that was afraid it was a fluke, a glitch in the scale.  I peeked at the scale Wednesday and was up almost 2 pounds.  Part of me was thinking, okay it was a fluke.  The loss was wrong.  But I decided to wait and see.  I peeked again yesterday.  Was up even more.  Started to get a bit worried, but this time, unlike the last several times, something changed in me.  I knew that I hadn’t done anything wrong.  I knew that I was making the right choices.  And this time, I wasn’t going to let the number on the scale derail me from continuing to make the right choices that would help me reach my goal (and by goal, I don’t mean goal weight).  Sure enough, when I peeked at the scale today, I was down .1 from Tuesday.  Not much of a loss, but it’s a loss and if I can make it through the weekend, then who knows what next week may have in store.

The point is that the number on the scale doesn’t matter as much as confidence in yourself and the willingness to never give up.  I’m not going to say don’t weigh yourself.  Because frankly, I don’t plan on stopping.  Sometimes when I don’t physically feel any different, it helps to see that number go down, even if it’s only a tenth of a pound.  In fact, I’m down over 20 pounds from when I recommitted myself, but I barely feel it all.

A new friend reminded me today that “a number is no measure of a person -- their personality, their sex appeal, what they offer. It’s all subjective.”  It’s a great reminder for all of us, but I will have to admit to being somewhat of a hypocrite.  While I’ve always firmly believed that that was true -  it was only true so far as it referred to someone else.  Where I was concerned, however, I’ve always been worried that the added weight was all they could see.  I’ve written often over the past several months about some of my experiences, especially as a kid, that helped germinate this idea.  But I’m finally beginning to look beyond the number on the scale when thinking about myself.  I’m starting to apply that idea and belief system to myself and it’s a wonderful thing. Of course, I’ll always be a work in progress.

I wrote in one of my posts the other day about a song by the group “Train” called “Words.”  I’ve been listening to it a lot lately.  All of the words that have been said to me that have hurt me, I’m using as “firewood.”  And all of the times I looked at the scale and didn’t like what it said, I’m using it as “firewood” to fuel my determination.  Not necessarily my determination to keep losing weight (though that is, of course, a part of it), but also my determination in showing the world a confident and happy Pamela.

Christy (a/k/a Angelchrys) in her infinite ability to find new things for me to love, introduced me to this short film, “Validation,” starring the “Bones” actor, TJ Thyne.  It’s about 16 minutes long, but I loved it and think it has a good message.  But while we can all use a little validation in our lives from others, the most important validation comes from ourselves.  Not from someone else.  Not from the scale.