I Gave Up the Scale and I Couldn’t be Happier

I’m not so scared anymore.

Photo by i yunmai on Unsplash

My scale has dust on it now, but it hasn’t always.

I spent years chained to scales in not only my own bathroom, but others’ bathrooms as well. I’ve gone through several scales — a cheap black one, a glass Weight Watchers one and more — as they seemed to lose their accuracy.

I cared a lot about the accuracy because so much depended on that number. My life centered around my weight, but it also centered around how I could control it. For years I engaged in disordered eating behaviors that left me with an unhealthy relationship with food and my body.

In a way, I thought the world would end if I gained too much weight. I needed the number to go down in order for me to stay sane.

The number on the scale meant more to me than I want to admit sometimes.

I found my worth there. I found my mood for the day there. I found my successes and failures there.

I now know that none of those things can be found on a scale. The scale held a number, nothing more.

But my journey getting to that point wasn’t linear, easy or short.

Not all that long ago, I weighed myself. Not multiple times a day, like I used to, but definitely once or twice a…