Perception

I blogged last year about the whole "losing weight before I turned 30" thing. For once, one of my goals actually came to fruition. I hit my 30's with a body that wasn't perfect, but I was very happy with it. People who didn't even know I had tried to lose weight complimented me on how good I looked, which felt great.

I'll just be honest here and do something a lot of women don't want to do. I'm going to spit out numbers. When I started last year, I averaged about 165. Sometimes I'd creep up to 168-ish. I know it's not exactly obese, especially on my 5' 8" frame, but I was unhappy. I didn't feel healthy, I didn't feel attractive, and I just needed to lose the weight for me. I worked hard, and quite a while before my goal date of my 30th birthday, I hit a place where I toggled in between 140 and 145, depending on, ahem, that time of the month. I still wanted to lose 5-10 more, but I was satisfied.

Life got busy, and I stopped exercising as much and I decided to stop watching the scale. I figured that as long as I was still fitting in my clothes and feeling good, then watching the scale might be too obsessive and detrimental. As long as I was still feeling good then what does weight matter, right?

I haven't weighed myself in a good 6 months. Since the holidays, I've just not felt as great. I've been tired, and when I look in the mirror I'm not happy any more. The same clothes still fit, but I'm no longer happy with how they fit. I've not been exercising at all, and it's been a nasty downward spiral.

I've been wanting to step on the scale to see how bad the damage is, but at the same time I've been terrified to. I know what seeing a higher number will do to me, emotionally. I feel. . .fat. Seeing the scale go up wouldn't help my feelings about that. Tonight however, the scale was out and I stared it down. I stepped on, preparing myself to be devastated. I just KNEW I had gained weight, with as unhappy about my body as I've felt lately.

I took a deep breath and looked down. Stepped off the scale, figuring it couldn't be right, and fiddled with it making sure it was zeroed. Stepped on again, and sure enough, it said the same thing. Fully dressed (without shoes) I weighed a whopping. . . .142.

That's when I was shown just how much your mind can mess with you about how you look. I weigh exactly the same. Even though I am not happy with how they are fitting, I am still fitting into the same size clothes. It's all in my head. Turns out, the scale isn't my enemy. My own mind is. I know getting back into my healthy regimen will help my perception of myself. That, and maybe a healthy reminder from my scale every once in a while.