Screw the Scale

Some people have a love/hate relationship with their scale. I have an intense dislike/burning hatred relationship with mine. There's never a time that I step on that plastic bastard, look down at the numbers and think, "That's pretty good." At best it's "ugh." At its worst, it's "Oh. My. God. I am never eating again." But what really aggravates me much more than the numbers that flash up in that little display window, is the hold they have on me.

See, I can be having a day where I feel pretty good. I'll look in the mirror and think, "Not bad!" But if I get on the scale, and reads even a half pound over what I think is acceptable, my whole self image is shot. Somewhere between the ten steps from the mirror to the bathroom, I must have put on ten pounds. Because the reflection that looked pretty good to me two minutes ago, now looks like a lumpy, dumpy, frumpy hag.

And I know that it's ridiculous. I should not let some battery-powered hunk of judgement determine my self-worth. But I do. It pushes aside the fact that I exercise regularly (yup, still doing battle with the elliptical several times a week), wear a smaller size than I did a year ago, look better in pictures, and that I have more endurance than I ever have. None of that matters if the number isn't low enough.

And the worst part is that I know I probably look as good now as I'm ever going to. Most people don't get better looking as the years pass. (Unless you're an awkward adolescent. In that case, the coming years will only bring improvement.) But even though I know, logically, that I should embrace the far-from-perfect figure that I have, that I should love it for being strong and healthy, and in at least nominally good shape, I spend most of my mirror time cataloguing the flaws. I can't get past the thunder thighs, or the stomach that starts off okay, then seems to melt downward into a Dahli-esque sag.

I wish I could shrug off the ravages of time and childbirth, and say with a smile, "Well hell, it could be a lot worse." I wish I could totally, without reservations, embrace what I see in the mirror today. But who truly can? I felt fat at 18, and when I look at pictures from back then, I think, how stupid was I? I would kill to have that body now. Why couldn't I love it then? But like the song says "Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you've got till it's gone..." Maybe I should just stay off the scale and let my jeans be the judge. Jeans won't lie, but they also won't give you a stupid soul-crushing number to obsess over.