Know any people like this? Folks who focus on the world through the lens of weight? I used to be one. For most of my adult life I weighed every morning. Felt guilty and incomplete if I hadn't. And I had all these insane rules about that. Had to do it nude. Had to put my contacts in so the glasses wouldn't add anything. Had to use the bathroom before so I'd be as light as possible. Didn't put my hand lotion on until I had weighed. Now, how much do you suppose hand lotion could weigh? Is there a scale in the world sensitive enough to register it? If there is, could a person stand on it without breaking it?
The other side of that coin, is figuring out how much exercise I'd done for the day. Pedometers. Stop watches. The little meter on the exercise machine. Figuring out if I had exercised enough to allow me to have a few calories more.
Oh, and the third side -- counting those calories or points or carbs or whatever when they went in. Adding fiber to things so that they would fill me up sooner and transit the system faster, taking some extra calories along with them. Fat blockers. Starch blockers. Let's not talk about having Milk of Magnesia before I ate -- that did make me limit the number of times I ate because I hated the taste, but it just increased the volume at each meal, since I wasn't going to get out that bottle again any time soon, so it balanced out.
Do you have any idea how good it feels to be sane at last? To have a healthy relationship with food? To have time and energy to think about other things?
5 comments:
Well, you came by it honestly. I remember when Grandma had her heart attack, and lying there in the hospital, she asked Aunt Flo to check how much she weighed on her chart. When Aunt Flo told her, she was sad, because she had hoped she would have 'done better' and lost more while not eating. Insane is right.
I'm glad you've put that craziness behind you.
I hope I get in that mind-set someday. Someday! :)
I think my eyes were finally opened when my grandma was in a serious, nearly-fatal car accident.
After two weeks in a hospital bed, she was so proud and excited because she was "hadn't weighed this little since high school!"
Scary.
I have days where I'm in that mind-set J. Weight has been a focus of some sort most of my adult life. Sometimes I just choose to ignore it, and other times I let it bother me much more than it should. You're right...it can be very obsessing if you let it. I basically choose not to let it.
As long as I fit in my jeans, I'm happy. I know I need to lay off a bit when they get hard to zip. ;^)
No, actually I've been scale watching this year. I haven't lost nearly what I wanted to but am happy and healthy and fit, so it's all good, really. I would rather be a lean and fit 160 than an out of shape 140 any day!
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