Day 23: The Day I Stopped Weighing Myself.

crosswind · April 22, 2011

Yesterday I decided not to weigh myself. I had been a little obsessive the past few weeks, kind of obsessive, and sort of endlessly disappointed the way I always am on the scale. You know there is that after-party feeling you get when you've just gotten weight loss surgery and even the loss of 30 pounds in three weeks somehow doesn't satisfy.

It's the death of the fantasy-surgery in which you fly back from Mexico suddenly weighing 135 pounds. I mean it was weight loss *surgery*, right? Medical Magic? Where the hell *is* my flying car, by the way?

I know there are people who give you this advice anyway. The Weight Watchers lady, the Jenny Craig lady and the Diet Center lady were all prone to the same advice and now thinking back on it they might have all been the same lady. Remember her? Skinny, size zero dress with a tiny waist and no sleeves, huge grin on her face and at least en years younger than you perkily dispensing dictums about how one should comport one's self in life. I swear she was always the same girl. And as far as I knew I was listening to a person who was subsisting on styrofoam and black tar heroin.

Jenny Craig was probably the worst diet ripoff I ever encountered -- five hundred dollars "registration" fee and then I would come to get "my food", as they called the minsucule globules of prepackaged crap frozen dinners and "snacks" such as two thumbprint sized, elven lemon butter muffins.

Jenny Craig is owned by Nestle Corporation. They are in the food business. The whole thing is designed to sell a vulnerable, aging and overweight population of females their crap food at an astronomical markup. It's all like this, all of it.

All of it.

What I keep thinking about still is all the lies and nonsense I paid for to try to lose a hundred pounds for the third time and I just knew I never would. I would just *keep buying products* as some sort of offering. Sure I was overweight. But I was doing something. I was spending thousands of dollars a year in extra shit I never used or got satisfaction from because those thousand dollars represented some kind of hope but then....after a while..it's just what you do. You're fat -- this is not a condition but a demographic, a role, a llifestyle. Your market speaks and your ears perk up right away. The salesman in your living room gets you to part with only six payments of 59.99 for some Chinese appliance wih moving parts you are supposed to press or move or kick; or some tape or "plan*.

I will never regret the money I spent on weight loss surgery. What I regret is all that *other* goddamned money.

Tangent, sorry.

I decided to stop weighing myself because I am trying to save myself from the feedback loop I seem get sucked into with the scale. I know it's "stall week". I know I'm going to "stall". I would just rather not hear about it from that appliance. Because what it doesn't know is that I barely have a stomach anymore and I am eating less than six hundred calories a day on average so it's very *likely*, I mean one could *project* that I am losing a shit-ton of weight here.

I'm sticking with that for the time being. For as long as I can stand it. It's very zen of me.

And today was much better than yesterday. Special K went down with joy and peace in its heart; and then around 4 I went to Culvers and got a cup of bacon and potato Soup to dissect and pulverize. It also went down like a sleepy baby and gave me a nice, rounded, carby buzz. I had some juice in my veins today and did not cry, although I did get way too interested in mineral makeup products and at-home microdermabrasion which I had to force myself not to buy. I don't look all that great for a person who just lost thirty pounds. I look tired and kind of sucked-in and gray, which is what I hear happens to people who've . had surgery recently. But I decided it was not time to worry about that yet. It's really unlikely I'm going to look like Heather Locklear tomorrow no matter what I purchase online.

A little more new normal today. And no scale, which to me should be the most normal thing of all.

learningintuition · April 22, 2011

I feel you. I've stopped losing at 31 lbs and I wrote my nutritionist, will go back to group sat and will start exercising..but I have the fantasy too. Hugs.

Rev Me Up! · April 22, 2011

Nice to hear you are starting to turn the corner! I know I started to feel human again when I was eating real food. I also had to get some super moisturizing cream because my skin looked awful for the first 5 weeks - dry, wrinkly, yuck.

I made a decision not to weigh myself at all from week 3 to week 5 because I knew about the dreaded stall. The good news is that I did lose weight when I finally got on the scale in week 5 - it was only 2 pounds - but I sailed through the stall wihtout having to torture myself about not seeing the scale more every day. I guess we each have our own way of tricking ourselves, eh? My partner as hiddenthe scale somewhere in the garage and I have to ask him to go get it when I want to weigh in. It keeps me from focusing on it too much.

Amen about the diet industry - we are all like lambs to the slaughter...

Lara

Skinnyagain · April 22, 2011

Well written, I wish You would have posted this at my 3 week mark. I got on that stupid scale every damn day and NOTHING moved. I am 5 weeks out now and still nothing. I will not get on that scale again until my 6 week follow up. I am very dishearten by the non moving scale, and I hope that it does not keep me in this rut for long. I am a cash pay patient and I think I spent equally as much on crap before I paid for my surgery. The money we waste on all the B.S they "feed" us on tv, it should be outlawed.

Good luck with your weight loss journey. Its nice to know we are not alone out here.