On not feeling the scale love (and being ok with that)

I would describe my relationship with my bathroom scales as…uneasy. We studiously ignore each other most of the time, apart from the odd period of frenzy when I hop on every time I enter the bathroom. This seems to suit us both.

At the end of last year I was attending a weekly WW meeting, which meant that the home scales could be disregarded altogether. But because of all the travelling that I have been doing for work recently, I was missing as many as I was attending, and it became difficult to justify the cost especially since I seldom stayed for the meeting proper. So this January, I’ve switched back to online membership and I’ve had to pick up with the boys in the bathroom again.

They are not loving me so far this year. Last week, I recorded a STS (Stay The Same) which I could accept quite happily given that my first post Christmas weigh in had shown what I thought was an undeservedly low figure. But this week, this week I was expecting big things. If they handed out prizes for WW Sainthood I would have won. I tracked diligently, I ate sensibly, I even exercised restraint on my alcohol consumption. I reached Sunday evening with points to spare and a decided air of smugness.

Those bastard scales sure put an end to that. Quarter of a pound off, if you please. Quarter of a pound! I could probably have lost that just by shaving my legs.

Old Me would have thrown a terrific strop. What’s the point, she would have said, why bother, let us just sit in bed and eat cake until they have to winch us out through the window.

But New Me is much more Zen. New Me looks back at last week and says – ok, you gave it a good shot and you didn’t get the loss that you were hoping for. But did you feel deprived? No. Did you enjoy the food you ate? Yes. Did you feel healthy and satisfied? Yes, most of the time. Is there anything you could do differently? Well, I could possibly spread my weeklies a little more evenly. Will the scales drop eventually? Yes, for sure.

I am not, I refuse, to be ruled by the number on the scales – I will not give them that power over me. I will continue to try, succeeding sometimes and other times not so much, and eventually I’ll see that figure meander downwards.

Hopefully.