I Haven't Weighed Myself For Four Years

It didn't happen entirely on purpose, I have to admit. When my then-boyfriend and I moved in together, we didn't have a set of scales and the flat we moved into wasn't furnished with any either. And, really, a set of scales was quite a low priority on the list of things we had to buy for the flat - like, you know, furniture, and cooking utensils. They got forgotten about for a while, then we moved again and I remember we still had no scales. However, there was always something more important that needed buying or doing or sorting out, so I never really got round to those scales.

So what could be construed as a feminist gesture, as a high-five to a positive body-image, was in fact borne out of laziness more than anything else. Perhaps not my finest moment, but as you can see it is possible to create a silver lining out of anything.

I would like to offer some justification, in that part of the reason for my laziness in buying the scales was that, well, I just didn't want them. I know I'm not overweight, and I like to think I have a reasonably attractive figure. And yet, those scales never had anything nice to say to me. From my late teens to my early twenties, I put on a lot of weight while still remaining more or less the same clothes size. This was probably mostly down to my curves filling out, but it still wasn't pleasant to see a higher number than the last time I looked. I began to see myself as a number of kilos, something to be reduced simply because I didn't want to be that heavy! How could I be? So many other girls I knew weighed less, so it was shameful to me that I was that much heavier. In addition, I knew I was very close to being classed as overweight on the BMI scale, and I didn't know then how inaccurate and unhelpful it was. It seems so silly and illogical looking at it now, and it is so strange how one's image can become so distorted over such a minor thing.

Over a few years, I learned a few things about my body. Some I realised during my period with a set of scales, others I have fully realised now I don't have access to any. I know now that my weight fluctuates a lot, and quite frequently. Another is that, no matter how much my weight changes, my actual size varies little.

Now, if and when I do monitor myself, I do it by checking how my clothes fit me. And I feel right now that my body is at its optimum size; it doesn't seem to want to shift upwards or downwards, regardless of how much or little care I am paying to myself at the time. My previous preoccupation was with my weight, and I have now learned to pay attention to myself as a whole. Fortunately, I didn't have to go through too many distorted thought-processes before I got there.

Ultimately, weight is just a number, as they say. However, I don't think I'll be buying a new set of scales any time soon.