Not feeling too great, or weighing too much less

November 13, 2007

Why do I diet? I sometimes diet because I am suddenly vain (it only took me 24 years to get there), but mostly I diet because I want to be healthy, I want to feel better about myself.

But the easiest way to feel worse about myself is to let my diet run my life. In the About Scales and Exercise chapter of Breaking Free from Compulsive Eating, Geneen Roth says:

Scales have the power to turn a previously depressing day into one with sunshine, a previously bright day into a miserable one. When we get on the scale, we say, “Tell me, machine, how I should feel about myself today.”

We’ve made the scale our symbol of authority, of worth, of truth. If we’ve been “bad” there’s no denying it because it shows up on the scale. If we’ve been “good” getting on the scale will be its own reward. The scale, like God, knows all.

A scale, however, is just a scale–a cold, lifeless piece of metal–until we give it its power. We make it into the instrument that tells us if we should like ourselves that day or not. And we do that by accepting societal beliefs about the goodness and the rightness of being at a lower rather than a higher weight and also by continuing to weigh ourselves day after day. As if you can’t tell by the way your clothes fit whether you’ve lost or gained weight. As if you need punishment to force you into losing weight. As if you weren’t a feeling, thinking, capable human being who can decide for yourself what kind of day you’re going to have and how you’re going to feel about yourself.

Throw your scale out.

Or, paste your ideal weight on it so that when you ask if you’re allowed to feel good about yourself that day, it says “of course.”

I weighed more than 211 this morning.

Posted in Just Life