My client, Betty, gave up weighing herself after 45 years of having the morning ritual of getting on the scale. What happened? Could she do it?

This is an email my client, Betty, wrote to one of my email support groups. Please read and feel the inspiration she gave all of us about judging herself by a number on the scale.


Hi everyone,

 Haven’t posted in awhile, but just realized something …I don’t remember what I weighed on January 4th, the last day I weighed myself!  Now this is coming after a lifetime of weighing every day – with two exceptions:  the last two months of a pregnancy with twins in 1986 and a semester in Canterbury, England in 2007 where I didn’t have access to a scale. I can still recite what I weighed at every significant day of my life, starting with 8th grade graduation.   And now I don’t remember what I weighed the very last day I looked - what a change!

 

And amazingly, I really don’t care!  I am so so done with trying to lose weight and feeling like a failure on a daily basis.  It is so freeing!!  And it’s not just giving up the scale, it’s redirecting thoughts toward taking care of myself, and appreciating that I am growing stronger and healthier as the months go by.  And couple of weeks ago, when I put on shorts for the first time this year, I was shocked to see that I didn’t mind how I looked in them!  I can’t remember how many years it's been since that’s happened!

 

Deb started working on me to give up weighing last fall and initially, that idea sounded so scary.  To abandon the close watch I’d been keeping for years, which, I figured, would probably result in being careless with what I eat and how much exercise I got would backfire.  Weight would slowly but surely creep on – until my butt was the size of New Jersey!  Pretty terrifying. 

 

But eventually it hit me that daily weight tracking certainly hadn’t worked in any reliable way – and made me feel like a miserable failure most of the time anyway, so why not just trust Deb and try giving it up? After all, she is the one with so much experience at helping people do just what I want – to be healthy and strong.  I didn’t feel “ready” to give it up at all.  But it dawned on me that if I waited to be ready, I’d never even give it a try.  



It turns out that what started as an unnerving leap of faith has turned into a very real experience of feeling so much better about myself!  It’s really great to not start every day “facing the music” and instead spending a few minutes thinking about what I am going to do that day to take care of myself.  It is SO freeing not to be stuck in the vicious cycle of weighing and feeling bad!  And to top it all off, it works! I don’t look gross in my shorts!  Thanks Deb...

Betty