ditching the scale

As women, we all face the that nasty topic.  You know what I'm talking about.  Body image.

We weigh ourselves, compare ourselves, tell ourselves that we aren't good enough with the way that we are, and sometimes go to extremes to meet these "goals" that are completely acceptable to us.

This is something I've always dealt with.  I don't think I ever really felt comfortable in my skin.  In middle school I was bigger, more developed, and already began telling myself the lie that my body wasn't good enough.  This lie built and built as I went into high school and throughout college.  It probably wasn't until I was married that I finally felt comfortable with who I was and the shape that I was.  Fortunately I loved food way too much to go to extremes to change my body.  Plus, I learned how to exercise and finally (not over night) accepted that being fit didn't mean skinny but healthy.

I always had a fear of the weight gain during pregnancy.  My mom would admonish me whenever I would tell her my nightmares of blowing up like an elephant.  And I wasn't even pregnant yet.  So when I got pregnant I realized I needed to do something so that I kept a healthy mindset throughout it.  I didn't want to be stressed with a number that I needed to lose after having the baby and I also didn't want to beat myself up when my body was doing the most beautiful thing-making life.

With that I decided to not know how much I weighed during my pregnancy.  It is doable!  I would turn around and face away from the numbers on the scale and politely let my nurse know I didn't want to know my weight.  When they printed up my paperwork, I soon figured out that my weight was printed on it!  So then I started asking my nurse to use sharpie over it so I couldn't see it.  I know that I must've sounded silly and crazy, but my nurses quickly caught on and began to remember, and most importantly- I wasn't kicking myself or hating on my body.  I watched as my body stretched and grew in places it had never before.  There were days that I wasn't happy with my body, but I would quickly remind myself that it was doing something amazing and deserved to be praised not hated.

After Nathan arrived I was going for a walk around the neighborhood and was thinking about this weight issue that we as woman go through.  I've come a very long way mentally to accept my body, even my pregnant body, and I suddenly decided that I still loved my body.  This postpartum body of mine shows the marks that provided life for another and created a beautifully healthy baby.  And that should be praised!

For me, I'd rather base how I feel about my weight on how my clothes feel and how I feel.  The scale has this gloomy association, creating a sense of fear.  So why not free ourselves from this fear and not weigh ourselves?  This doesn't mean "let our bodies go" and live an unhealthy lifestyle.  This means find what healthy looks like for you, find pieces of your body you love and focus on them, and listen to how your body feels in your clothes instead of living for a number.

Now, just to show you how human I am I have to share with you how I didn't live this out this week.  At my follow up appointment this week I thought I'd actually look at the scale.  You know, just to see where I was at since having the baby.  I wasn't actually pretty happy with the number, but I didn't know what to compare it to since I hadn't been weighing myself throughout my pregnancy and even leading up to it.  So when I got home, I jumped onto the computer and looked up my past visit reports and found my weight pre-baby and for my first appointment.  Yes I did.  And instantly my mind was flooded with disappointment and anxiety because now I knew how much weight I needed to lose to be back to my "pre-baby" body.  How terrible this was!  This is exactly what I didn't want to happen, and here I was undoing everything I had done.

We are all human and we will have moments when the number takes over our minds and brings us down.  And there are moments when we live for more than the number and accept and love our bodies for what they create and do.  So, if you are struggling with your body image by any means I urge you to ditch the scale and remember that the number does not define you!