Is your scale still sitting on your bathroom floor, smirking at you from the corner, and passing judgment? It’s time to break up with the Gordon Ramsey of your bathroom. It’s time to ditch the scale.
What Is Your Worth?
A major part of self-worth is self-acceptance. Do you accept yourself wholly? Do you feel good about yourself when you get up in the morning? How you answer those questions will have a large impact on how much you let external attributes qualify you as a human.
Your true worth comes from within. It’s important that you love your entire being and realize that no amount of money can trump the glow of someone that has a high degree of self-worth.
When you love yourself, you don’t let the superficial dominate your mind. There is so much more to us than what we show on the outside. When we learn to embrace our inner beauty we are setting ourselves free. Free from the impossible beauty standards that society projects onto us as women.
So that being said, why do we continue to let the bathroom scale determine how we feel about ourselves? Now, I’m not saying that your weight is not important from a health perspective. Good health is always the goal, and maintaining a healthy weight is part of that. What I am saying is that we can’t let a number on the scale dictate our level of happiness and self-worth.
My Breakup
I broke up with my scale ages ago. It happened during a time when I had put on a little weight, and I became obsessed with getting back to what people call your “fighting weight”. I was so focused on achieving that number, that I held onto all of the clothes that I could no longer fit way longer than I should have.
Sleeping With The Enemy
During that time, the scale was my best friend and my worst enemy. On good days, I was one step closer to fitting into my favorite jeans, and on bad days my scale became my critic. My day would be going fine, and then I would step on the scale and get a dose of judgment. My body was stubbornly resisting my very best efforts at weight loss, and each weigh-in would single-handedly ruin my day. No matter how good I was feeling about myself, the number on the scale would taunt me mercilessly.
Eyes Wide Shut
Over time, I began to resent those weigh-ins, and after a while, I started avoiding my scale altogether. I would eye it suspiciously like a frenemy as it sat in the bathroom corner. This was the beginning of the end for my scale.
The Long Road Back
Newly estranged from my scale, I decided to try something different. I began to focus on eating healthy and using the fit of my clothes as a gauge of my weight changes. How your clothes fit will always tell the story. If my clothes fit a little tight, I would be a bit more mindful about the food that I was consuming. To me, it was a much gentler version of a course correction than staring at the harsh numbers on the scale.
After a year of this, I decided to get rid of my scale for good. Who needed it? In addition, I found that using my clothes as a gauge also saved money. There was a time when I used to keep three clothing sizes in my closet to accommodate my weight fluctuations. Not anymore. Now I keep my current size on hand, and manage things from there.
I have no regrets, and I haven’t looked back. I’ve even donated all of my “fighting weight” clothing to charity. It’s all good.
Health Vs. Vanity
When you focus on your health and inner beauty vs. what society’s idea of attractiveness is, you experience true alignment. You prioritize putting healthy things into your body for wellness reasons and your weight becomes a measure of health vs. vanity.
The love/hate relationships that we have with our scales can send our self-esteem plummeting. Will you ever be the size that you were in high school or college again? Maybe not, but ask yourself why it even matters.
I am completely uninterested in setting unrealistic and unattainable goals for myself based on superficial metrics. Who cares what everyone else looks like? I don’t. Not anymore. We are given this one body for life, so we need to respect and take care of it. It doesn’t matter what your body looks like on the outside, when inside you feel horrible.
It’s time to put your scale in its proper place and stop the emotional rollercoaster. You don’t need it.
Spiritual Wellness
When you let go and begin focusing on what really matters, you have arrived at a place of spiritual wellness. Build a rich inner life, where you celebrate yourself, love yourself unconditionally, and give yourself grace. Get comfortable in your skin.
Start loving those few extra pounds that have been hanging around. Your weight doesn’t define you, but how you feel about yourself does. You don’t need that scale to green-light you, because you are already lit. Believe that you are worth more than the external and it becomes true.
Let your inner beauty be your baseline, and build a life around that.
So, it’s time to march that scale over to the recycling bin and give the deuces to your biggest critic.
If you have a moment, check out my previous post “External Validation and Opting Out” https://herpicketfence.com/external-validation-and-opting-out/
