the scale

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”

i like the scale. well until it stopped working. okay fine, it works - just not the way i want it to though.  ideally, i would like to see a 30 lb drop in one week and be done with it forever. but lately all i get is up 2 lbs and down 2 lbs, up .4 lbs and down .1 lb. it's a tease. annoying. distressing. and boring.  


i like extremes. i don't like the middle way. i need things to move super fast or i get impatient, and then i lose interest. and so forth and so on till the goal at hand becomes unimportant.  i weigh myself everyday to no avail. if you've seen my progress report you'll see the super slow progress i've had in the last past 6 months.  it's super annoying. 


but to be quite fair i use & abuse the scale everyday, expecting some kind of miracle drop. i eat at a sushi buffet and then the next day i weigh myself expecting my body to have mysteriously not digested any calories. and then the next day i eat way below my BMR for one day and i weigh myself  expecting to see half my weight shed off the next day. at some innate level i know that this is unrealistic. yet i do this every day. it's become so habitual that it's like second nature. if only going to the gym and eating right had become such a natural extension of my personality. sigh. 


so it is what it is and i've eliminated "the scale". i promised myself that i am only going to weigh myself at each month end. which means that by the end of january which is practically in 10 days i will weigh myself, but till then i am gonna focus more on exercising and healthy eating. i am not going to wait for miracles to happen and i am certainly not going to expect for the laws of nature to bend in order to accelerate my weight loss without the due diligence.  so yes that's that. no more scale. 


to the stars, 


uma

lessons from my mother.

"telling a child she is “good” or “bad” based off of the food she eats is confusing for her. Young children want to please. If she gets praise from an adult for what or how much she eats that is another reason to ignore her internal cues and rely on external cues and praise to guide their eating. Not to mention the emotions (negative and positive) that can begin to form around food. Children are “good” because they treat their friends and family with love and kindness, not because they can finish their sandwich."   {source}

my mom had many rules to adhere to growing up, but 3 have stuck to me like glue:


1. always finish your plate(s)
2. dont let food go to waste
3. dont let yourself go hungry (aka. eat before you get hungry)


These were the easiest of all rules to embrace as a kid, easier than do your homework, don't watch TV, don't draw on the walls, etc.  


following these simple rules ensured that i was praised and noted by my parents. and it really worked well for my parents - they never had to deal with dinner time tantrums, like with my sister to eat her food.  i was the example to follow for all my cousins.  and none of my mom's hard grueling work over the kitchen went to waste.  their hard earned monies never went to a waste. and i never looked malnourished, so that meant they had fed me well, which translated into they are great parents.  and the bonus: i was a "good girl". 


and flash forward a few years and 100s of pounds and diets later, these are the rules that I am having the hardest time letting go of.  i am getting better, but then it's so easy to slip back to what has been ingrained in me for the last 25 years.  i always have a hard time not finishing the plate, throwing food, and i always seem to be in a race with hunger -- with no need to say that i never lose.   


i thought about this yesterday when i saw the marble chocolate cake in the fridge around dinner time - it was yummy and extra choclatey and i realized that if i didnt eat it, it would go to waste.


what!?!? 


or more importantly, so what?


i needed to let it go to waste because the last thing that i needed was cake.  considering i had an everything bagel with crazy amounts of cream cheese for breakfast and a Big Mac (without Meat) for lunch WITH fries on the side.


Did i really need a slice of cake? apparently I DID - two big slices of them.  


and to make matters worse i had the same cake for breakfast this morning. there was a minor victory however: this time i had one slice & i left one slice, the very last piece. i left that last piece in the fridge even though every cell in my body wanted to devour it.  maybe it will be wasted or consumed by another family member, but not me. it looks like i am a "good girl" after all. 




to the stars, 


uma