The Scale . . . Weighing My Options (Get it?)

I broke up with my scale recently. We've had an on-again off-again thing going for a long time. My relationship with the scale started out pretty rough.

I was nine year's old, and at the private school I attended, we were having a unit about the human body. My well-meaning yet clueless teacher thought it would be a good idea to plot all of our heights and weights on the board. I sat, in agony, awaiting the public humiliation. I was the tallest in the class, and sure enough, I weighed more than everyone else except one other little girl, who looked even more miserable than I felt. I still remember that number. 80. It seemed impossibly high, compared to my best friend's 56 pounds, or my crush, who weighed a mere 60 pounds. What was wrong with me? I ate normal food, ran around and played just as much as anyone else.

That was the first moment I realized that I should be ashamed of the number on the scale if it was bigger than someone else's, especially a boy. I was heavier, and that was a bad thing.

I avoided the scale at all cost after this, even going so far as looking away when I was weighed at the doctor's office. But still, I knew. I just knew that I weighed more than a lot of my friends. I entered public school in eighth grade.  I remember sitting in biology one time, listening to a tiny, perky blonde girl bemoan that she weighed a full 89 pounds, and I thought that if I weighed eighty pounds at age nine, surely by age 13, and at 5' 9" tall, already wearing a C cup bra, my left leg probably weighed roughly as much as she did.

 At age 14, a freshman in high school, I started Weight Watchers online, which requires weekly weigh-ins. Over the course of three months, I dropped 30 pounds. For the first time in a long time, I was wearing a size medium t-shirt. People complimented me every day, and pretty soon I was weighing myself every day. It was like a drug. My mood was determined directly by whether or not I weighed more or less than the day before.

After I plateaued, I panicked. The number wasn't going down anymore, and even occasionally went up one or two pounds. I remembered that nobody gave me compliments before I lost weight, so obviously, if I gained weight again, I wouldn't be beautiful anymore. At this point, I started skipping meals when I could get away with it. I started to hate food, and yet, I thought about food and my weight nearly all the time. Finally, that summer, I realized that I weighed less than I ever had, but I was more miserable than I ever had been. It occurred to me, through the grace of God, that it just wasn't worth it. I had seen others close to me suffer through eating disorders, and that wasn't me. So I stopped. I stopped weighing myself, and I stopped dieting.

By the time I was a senior in high school, I was back to hating myself. My weight had gone up again, and I felt uglier than I ever had. My intelligence, my talents, my friends, my family . . . none of those wonderful things in my life could make up for the fact that I was "fat." I wasn't weighing myself, but had started emotional eating to try to make myself feel better. Shockingly, it didn't work.

Over the next few years, and the course of my mission for the church, I weighed myself sporadically, and my weight fluctuated. A lot. As I served my mission, food and my weight became the last thing on my mind, and I was happier than I've ever been. The number on the scale just didn't matter compared to what I could accomplish, who I could help, and who I was becoming.

I would be lying if I said that I haven't weighed myself ever in the two years I've been home from my mission, but the lesson I learned there has stuck with me. The number on the scale does not reflect my worth. It doesn't make me more or less loved by God, my family, or my friends. It doesn't make me more or less beautiful. It's just a number. So sorry, scale, but I don't need you anymore. I'm happier on my own, thanks!