1/10/2011

Back into business

Hey there blogworld, I am back!

It´s been a while and a lot happened in the past couple of month but I started to feel the urge for blogging today as I read a recent post of Chelsey from "Clean eating Chelsey". In this post she talks about the impact the scale used to have on her life. And this is what I want to talk about today, because in fact I also used to be a "scale slave", as she calls it, for a very long time in my life!

In my family weight was always a big issue, as my Mum struggled a lot with her overweight and was trying out new diet weekly. both my parents had the habbit of weighing themselves every morning. Even on some long holiday trips the scale was packed in the luggage to go on the trip with us. And as children tend to pick up habits that are lived by the people there the closest to, Ialso began to weigh myself on a daily basis when I was around 12!

In times of obsessive food restriction (have a look at my About page for more information) the scale was my best friend and worst enemy at the same time. If the numbers on it went down I was happy cheerful and therefore committed to lose even more, if the numbers went up on the other hand it put me into a stage of frustraion, confusion and self-hatred. But one thing the scale always gave me was the feeling of control. I felt like without this control I would not be able to mantaine my weight. It seemed to be some feeling of being in control in a world where you have absolutely none!
In times when I worked out, and actually felt better about my body I stepped on the scale and all this pride and self-confidence was gone within seconds. I mean I knew that I would gain from working out, because muscles weigh more than fat, but the power of the numbers was always bigger in the end, so that sometimes I even stopped working out so the I weighed less again!

It was in late November last year, when I decided to end this drama. It was a tough time for me, I was unhappy with my university studies, was in the process of ending a 2-years on-and-off relationship and just moved out from my parents house into a city 8 hours away from home, where I knew absolutely noone. My sister was at my place for a visit and we just enjoyed a delicious thai chicken-curry and chocolate fondue for dessert, when it suddenly stroke me and I said: let's destroy my scale. And so we did, I took a hammer and destroyed my scale completely in a very relieving, almost ceremonial act!

And ever since I didn´t weigh myself. And as I thought before, it was not easy at the beginning. I freaked out whenever I ate more than I planned and felt a huge urge to just step on the scale to assure that the impact wasn´t that big! But after almost two month i am fine! I am finally (re-) building a connection between my mind and my body. Now I go by how I feel and how my clothes fit me. Also I concentrate more on what I eat, but in a good way. Before i crushed my scale I ate foods that were low in calorie and that was basically the only criteria I based my meal decisions on. Now, and that has definately to do with me going mostly vegan, because I experienced the same effect whenever I went vegan for a while, I go by how food makes me feel. If it makes my tummy and tastebuds happy it´s got to be good for me aka my mind!

So I think it is possible to be in "control" (I rather refer to it as "balance" now, because that what it feels like to me) without the daily habit of hopping on the scale in the morning! Don't get me wrong I am not saying that weighing yourself daily is necessarily wrong for everybody! But if you feel that the numbers on the scale tend to have a uncomfortable impact on your mood you should maybe consider crushing it with a hammer!


2 comments: