I have a very odd relationship with my bathroom scale. It’s like one of those on again/off again love/hate relationships you see in most bad daytime TV dramas. If the numbers on it are moving down it’s my best friend. I visit it constantly, happily stepping on it multiple times a day and jotting down the falling numbers. If the number is moving up however it’s a totally different scenario. I don’t return any of it’s calls and only step on it when I’ve had too many drinks and it’s 3 in the morning and I shouldn’t be stepping on it ether way. No matter what the number is though I can normally step off the scale, rationalize the result somehow, and continue my dysfunctional relationship. Every once in a while though, I hop on there and get a number that results in a knock-down, drag-out, change my relationship status on Facebook to single, and lock myself in a room kind of funk. I think there is a number for all of us, that number that makes us look at ourselves grimly in the mirror and utter terrible words like, “fat-ass”, “gross”, or “disgusting” in our subconscious mind. For me that magical and evil number that makes me want to scream and yell at the universe for hours on end is 300 pounds.
This is my angry face
300!?! It’s a number I’ve encountered before. I’m not sure exactly when the first time was but it was sometime in my early twenties. I freaked out and a bunch of friends and I all joined a martial arts class. Fast forward a few years and I was at a weight I was comfortable with. Not fit or slim (I never was), but comfortable.
Me in Trinidad cooking
The next time I hit the number 300 it was much worse. I had been working in retail which meant long and late hours, and I hadn’t weighed myself in a year or more. There were two reasons for this, firstly I didn’t own a scale, and secondly the last time I stood on a scale it said “error” instead of a number. I was standing in the airport with Lauren and I jokingly stepped on a luggage scale, it came back at 362! I still cringe at that memory. We got back from the trip we took and I was depressed for a while. I spent some time beating up on myself and gaining a few more pounds ( hey what’s 10 more right?).
Then, with a ton of love, support, and patience from Lauren, I got out there and started walking, then jogging, then running. Between exercise and eating right and some other programs I lost over 90lbs. I was happy, more fit than I ever recall being ( even when I played High School Football I couldn’t run 6-miles). I hadn’t hit my goal weight, but I was comfortable again. I was the slimmest I ever recall being, lighter than in High School. Then suddenly I stopped. Life got in the way of exercise, we moved a few times for my latest retail job, and next thing you know the pounds were slowly tacking back on. I was still pretty comfortable though and was ok with how I looked a year ago when we started our travel blog. I wasn’t at my goal weight (still) but I was somehow comfortable being “pudgy” or “big boned”. Why? I think because I always was, it’s what I was used to.
The last time I hit the number 300 was just a few months ago. It was right before our trip to India for our travel blog. ”How did it happen THIS TIME” I thought? Then the same answers came up. Life is tough, I got busy, it’s hard to eat healthy on the road, and fast food is cheap and convenient. Well, it’s time to fix this again. There’s something different about this time though. I have a goal, and that goal isn’t to get “comfortable” it’s to actually get “fit”. The goal is to change my lifestyle, not focus on the numbers on a scale. I’m going to exercise, eat healthy, stop making excuses for why those two things are too hard, and get myself on the road to fit!! I just have one question: Who’s coming with me??