Lisa Hood

I gave away my scale. I don’t need, don’t want it.  Because weight is a number I just don’t need to know. In fact it’s a number I have hated, but endured my whole life.  I’ve alternated between checking this number 5 times a day and avoiding it for months at a time.  Whenever I’ve avoided it, I’ve suffered terrible guilt.  As though I could be stopped on the street and interrogated at any moment. Of course I could always provide my driver’s license which is at times 10 lbs shy of my actual weight to 40 lbs shy.  I wonder if I was pulled over and had to present my id, would the officer tell me, “Well, ma’am, this picture looks like you, but this weight…Um, I don’t think so.  And  5′7″?  In your dreams.”  Next time I’m at the MVD and they ask me my weight, I won’t quickly calculate in my head how fat I look versus how fat I am, and what number I think I can reasonable squeeze by this nearsighted bureaucrat.  Instead, I’ll answer honestly: I have no idea. 

Rather than tracking pounds like pesky gnats swarming around my head, I’m going to judge myself according to brand new criteria,

1.  How many miles / minutes I can walk

2.  How many days I’ve felt well and happy to be alive

3.  How many moments I’ve spent with my loved ones

4.  How many words I’ve written

Don’t get me wrong…I’m not saying to hell with managing my health. I’m just saying that my health does not equate to a number on a scale (which I don’t even own any more, so there!).  I’ll have goals in 2008 related to improving my health, but they won’t be to lose X lbs, or weigh a certain amount.  Instead, I will walk; I will spend time with my family; I will eat nutritious foods; and I will enjoy my life.  And I’ll do it all without knowing THAT number.