My broken scales have broken my heart!
I thought I was doing well - but my scales were lying to me!
Years ago when a friend got married he put on his wedding list “scales that lie”. I’ll take that I said. I went into Woolworths to try to find scales that would flatter and be kind. I tried several. Some of the staff joined in: “Yes! That one’s wrong. I definitely weigh more than that.” Then some fellow shoppers took the challenge: “These are way out, buy them.” Eventually I bought some that made all of us several pounds lower than we knew we were and I left the shop happy. So far as I’m aware my friend still has those lovely lying scales. The best kind.
Or are they!? I thought I was doing well this year. Losing steadily. Not too much but well within a healthy amount and one I hoped would stay off. Last week I gained nine pounds (4 kilos) overnight. Now I’m not a physicist but so far as I’m aware it simply isn’t possible to gain that much overnight - or lose that much unless you’ve had food poisoning. I couldn’t understand it. I hadn’t been bingeing. I’ve been a bit slack of late feeling as I am - or thought I was - close to goal weight so thought I could let up a bit. There was only one conclusion to be drawn - my scales had been lying to me. And they decided it was time to tell me the awful truth. I hadn’t in fact ever got down to 11.5/72 kilos/159 pounds as they’d informed me - just three pounds above the BMI I’m supposed to be. I was still around 12 stone! TWELVE STONE!!! That means, if true, I haven’t lost anything this year. Five months of the year gone and I’ve lost nothing. My weight has in fact stayed more or less the same since last September!
Starting over
If that’s true it’s not the end of the world. I did after all start at 15 stone 11 pounds! (100 kilos/221 pounds). So I’ve lost a fair bit and most of it has stayed off. But now I feel I have to start all over again to get back what I thought I had lost! I feel like a football team that’s had points deducted. Now I have to win again what I thought I’d already won! Or like an ‘A’ level student having to retake exams I’d already taken and passed. Or like Endeavour when his sergeant’s exam paper mysteriously went missing. It’s a horrible feeling to have to do over what you’ve already done! If I’d been bingeing like crazy and eaten the entire contents of my ‘fridge and next door’s too I would say, fine, it’s a fair cop I deserve it. But more than half a stone on for doing nothing! It’s like a penalty. A fine. I feel robbed!
Anyway there’s nothing else for it but to start again and get back those pounds I thought I’d lost. It’s very disheartening but if I don’t get straight back on it then there’s an awful chance I’ll give up and put all the weight back on. That is what’s always happened in the past. I get to a point where I think, sod it, why bother, what’s the point? And the weight goes back on and so it goes so it goes.
Break the cycle of despair
I want to break that cycle of despair this time. I want this to be my last diet ever. I can’t live whatever remains of my life like this. And I’ll live a lot longer if I can get control of my weight and stop with the damn yo-yoing.
So I’m going to brave the scales at Boots where I began my journey and see what they make me. Then I might buy myself some better scales. This time not the digital ones as they never seem to give me good news. I thought I’d go for the mechanical ones you see in doctor’s surgery - if you can remember what the inside of a doctor’s surgery looks like! Facing up to reality, to the truth, is very important when you want to deal with a lifelong problem. It’s bit like accepting how much you really owe on all those credit cards (I cut mine all up a very long time ago!) or how much alcohol you’re really drinking! Running from reality is fine for a while but fantasy can only get you so far. Reality is your real friend.
So I’m going to buy me some really good scales and this time I don’t want ones that lie. Those are going straight in the bin!