I couldn’t care less about the number on the scales.

The last time I weighed myself because my eating disorder decided I needed to do so was on the 31st of December last year. I can probably make an educated guess re how often an individual suffering with an eating disorder weighs themself, but how often does a normal person weigh themselves? Feel free to share.

Admittedly on the 31st of December, I had probably consumed too much wine (and thus avoid alcohol now!) but I’d also purged my dinner that night (also the last time I purged) and seeing the number sent me into a little of a meltdown. Yesterday I gave blood and was weighed before doing so, and now it’s brought on a little ramble about scales and how stupid they are etc. So here you have it.

I used to weigh myself constantly. I lived by the scales. Every morning as soon as I woke up, I would venture to the loo before running into the bathroom, stripping down to the underwear and standing on the scales. What the number was dictated how my day went. Extra exercise if the number was up. Maybe I allowed myself to eat 23 bites of an apple for breakfast if the number was down. I often missed school in the mornings because I would force myself to go to the gym if the number was up. Walk the half hour walk to go the gym, do two classes, go to school, walk to school from the station, walk to the station to go home, walk to the gym, do three more classes. Extra food or weight always meant I had to do extra exercise, too. And then I’d weigh myself before eating food, after eating food, before binging, after binging (and before purging), after purging, before exercising, after exercising… The list is seemingly endless.

So as I mentioned earlier on, yesterday I gave blood up in Sydney. It was my first time – I’ve actually wanted to do it ages but I wasn’t allowed to do so because I was significantly underweight for a while there and you have to weigh 50+ kilos to donate. Obviously they have to ask a lot of personal questions in order to get your medical history and establish whether your blood is actually okay to be donated and all that, and even though I have been recovered or in recovery for the last eight months and well in that time, it was still a close call in whether or not I could actually donate. So yeah, it’s nice that this stuff is taken seriously too. ANYWAY so the nurse had to weigh me and take down my height and all that and in that moment when she asked me to step on those scales, I almost considered taking off my shoes and my cardigan so that I could weigh a little less and not freak out or feel any anxiety. Resisted the urge. Only just weighed enough to give blood anyway – I’m only 154cm so that makes sense, really – but it was really, really relieving to see that my body can maintain a weight for a huge amount of time. I don’t understand how it does that, but it’s pretty amazing.

AND I don’t see my dietitian anymore, but one time earlier on this year I asked her how often was normal for one to be weighing themselves. She told me she weighs herself once a year just to check in that she is maintaining her weight. I don’t even think I really care about that anymore, I don’t own scales and I have no intention of investing in a pair. So I guess that means I won’t really know how much I weigh until I’m at the doctors or chiro or giving blood again or whatever. And that’s perfectly okay by me.

Why do we have to know what we weigh all the time? It doesn’t define who we are, that number.

Bek X

P.S – I wrote a song for a college assignment and you can find it hereeeeee.