I haven’t owned a scale since 2007. When I am forced to get on the scale at the doctor’s office, I ask them to keep the number to themselves, and I close my eyes while they weigh me. Maybe you think I’m being silly and naive, ignoring possible threats to my health because I don’t know what I weigh. But, ironically, I do this for my health – my mental health.
Thankfully, I have doctors (and their nurses) who are very respectful of this need I have to not know. Knowing what I weigh is so, so triggering for me. It sends me spiraling down a seemingly bottomless hole of shame and embarrassment. It doesn’t matter what the number is. (Unless I stood on a scale and it magically showed me my “ideal weight,” which is somewhere around 115 pounds. I haven’t weighed that little since middle school! Don’t even get me started about these “ideal” height/weight charts, and how unrealistic they can be.)
Isn’t it amazing how much power the number of pounds we weigh can have over us? Not only do we use our own weight to define ourselves and our worth, but we judge others when we find out what they weigh. Just think of a time you saw a celebrity’s (supposed) weight on a tabloid cover. Most of us would rather reveal the number of dollars we have (or don’t have!) in our checking accounts than the number of pounds on our bodies.
On Friday, I went to see my primary care doctor. It was a great visit. She is very respectful of my Health At Every Size approach to life. She really listens to what I have to say, and believes that I know my body best. Everything went well, until I went to check out. Then one of the staff handed me a sheet of paper detailing my appointment, and right at the top? My weight.
It destroyed me. I sat in my car for several minutes, shaking and trying not to cry. I talked to my mom and to a few close friends about how I was feeling, about the overwhelming shame that number caused me to feel. Nothing mattered – not my 11 half marathons, this site, the countless hours I’ve spent working out. All that mattered was that number. It was who I was, and I was a failure, I was disgusting. The number flashed bright neon in my skull, relentless and blinding. I might as well have been wearing a shirt with that number splashed across the front, like this:
The cast of season 15 of NBC’s The Biggest Loser.
The voices said: This number, this is why you can’t be faster in marathons. This number, this is why you’re single (that’s the loudest voice). Somehow, now that I know the number, everyone knows the number. It’s on a billboard in Times Square, with my picture above it, like a mug shot.
Three days later, I have some perspective on that number. It’s not me. It’s a part of me, sure, but it’s not who I am. It doesn’t tell you if I’m smart, or kind, or funny – or, for that matter, if I’m a mean old jerk. It doesn’t tell you if you’d like to know me… or does it? If I told you that number, would it change how you feel about me? Would you think less of me if you knew what I weighed?
A message to myself (and to everyone).
Some of you might be thinking, why do you care so much? Why do you let that number affect you? Maybe if you were open about it, it wouldn’t hold so much power over you. You may very well be right. But each of us wrestles with our own body demons in our own way, that this is where I am with mine. While I try every day to live a body positive life, there are some things that still knock me for a loop, bring me down, and make me feel like that undateable fat kid in high school with the bad perm (maybe it was actually the bad perm that made the boys not interested in me?).
Even if I am not in a place to just let go of the power this number has over me, I can actively work on not letting it define how I feel about myself and my worth. On Friday, I let it. Today, I don’t. Who knows what tomorrow holds? For today, I’m going to focus on the numbers I do like to monitor – blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, heart rate. And I’m going to work every day on unplugging that neon-bright number flashing in my skull, until it becomes only what it is: a part of me, but not all.
