Are you caught up in scale drama?

My relationship with the scale has been...shall we say...complicated? 

After years of dieting, I have a pretty rich history of playing scale games -- going to the bathroom before a weigh in, wearing the lightest clothes I own to weigh in, weighing only in the mornings, and never weighing after a salty meal the night before. 

All of those antics were focused on trying to make the number on the scale go down. 

But what I was really doing was trying to make myself feel better by having a number that was lower -- I was literally making the scale responsible for how I felt about my body. 

And when the scale went up? I was disappointed and searching for what I obviously did wrong.

What’s been different this time that I’ve lost weight and have kept it off -- is that I’ve worked on my relationship with the scale by neutralizing the number, and focusing on what really matters.

What does that mean? 

I’ve weighed myself often enough to know how my body responds to my life. 

The scale often goes up when I eat out, when I drink more than one glass of wine, eat salty foods, and so on. And all of that is a part of life. Then a couple of days later the scale goes down. 

The numbers are just data, and don’t mean anything about me or my worth.

What really matters? 

What I say to myself when I step on the scale.

It used to sound like… 

“Oh, shit!” 

“Whhaaat?” 

“This isn’t working.”

That spiral of negative thoughts usually made me feel worse, and often led to more overeating. 

We returned from a vacation a few days ago during which I had lots of wine and snacks and desserts and all. the. things.

I hopped on the scale and it was up a couple of pounds. 

And what did I say to myself? 

“Makes sense. That’ll be back down in a few days.”

No drama -- just back to focusing on the ways that I take care of myself normally. 

Part of me still finds this whole process of working on my thinking incredible. 

But it’s simply a skill.