Tags
anorexia, bodies, Body Image, calories, college, eating disorder, EDNOS, hope, inspiration, love your body, muscle, orthorexia, perfectionism, recovery, weight gain, women
Lovely Followers,
Perhaps that title is a bit misleading but for me, the shattering of my glass scale was exactly the sort of monumental moment I expect to remember for a long time. That’s right, my scale is gone- kaput – shattered into a million pieces on my bathroom floor where it can never again come to haunt me.
I dearly wish I could say that I was the one to bring about this change in my life, that I was the one who was so fed up with ridiculous numbers, that I just chucked the entire thing against the wall. This was not the case. Instead, the demise of my scale has more to do with careless fingers and gravity than boiling emotions and animalistic rage. I will, however, take blessings no matter how they are given.
I remember a time before the scale – and really it was not so long ago – when I measured progress by how I looked, how I felt and how my clothes fit, not by the number flashed across a tiny screen. In a way, I was happier because I wasn’t so stressed out about reaching a weight that quite frankly, changed by the hour. I could go up or down 6 pounds in a single day so honestly, how accurate were those numbers in the first place?
Now, without a scale to tell me if I am a success or a failure, I will once again resort back to my days of monitoring how clothes fit and how I feel. My new goal is not a number, but a state of being. I want to feel happy, fulfilled and beautiful and, oh, yeah, actually fill out those skinny jeans that have been collecting dust in my closet.
In perspective, I’ve realized that weight is controlled by hundreds of factors – height, bone density, muscle, fat, water intake, etc. – but appearance is really only effected by one: your outlook. How you perceive yourself can say a lot more about how ‘healthy’ you are then any number ever could. Do you feel as if you can take on the world? Do you feel strong and happy? If not, then how can you ever expect a number to do it for you?
So out with the old and in with the new. I am trading my broken scales for a pair of designer jeans I bought on a trip to Chicago with my mother. Now there’s nothing remarkable about these jeans, well besides the fact that they’re nearly worn to tatters. No, what makes these jeans special is what they represent. These were a pair of jeans I bought when I was at the height of vivaciousness, a time when I devoured deep dish pizza because we were in the Windy City and well, that’s what normal people do.
For me, these jeans represent a body that was in love with living. A body that was strong enough to take anything that came her way and was even the more lovely because of it. Sure, I may have been a few sizes larger, but I was living. Right now these jeans sit dutifully folded in the bottom of my bureau awaiting the day they won’t sag painfully off my bony figure.
The day I wear those jeans is the day I start living. I don’t need a scale to tell me if I’m on the right path or nearing perfection, whatever that is. No, I have a pair of blues that will do more for me than any scale ever could because they represent so much more than any frivolous number. Does it matter what I weigh? Sort of. But does it matter more how I look and feel? Most definitely.
The sort of freedom I feel without the scale is something I never really expected. I thought I would be sent into a panic without my daily weigh-ins, but I find I am not. I am free to eat with abandon and not face the numerical consequences the next day. I can eat, drink, sleep without little numbers dancing in my head, and for that I am truly thankful.
Stay Strong!
R