When I was at my heaviest in high-school, I stopped looking in mirrors and I stopped getting on the scale. Both of these exercises only made me feel depressed and humiliated, by myself or, even worse, by doctors, parents and friends who all had something to say about what they saw. Adolescence is a sensitive age, so it's no wonder that I rebelled by never looking in the mirror and never getting on a scale for, oh, at least a year or more.
I knew I needed help and that these feelings were neither crazy, nor healthy. In my junior year, I did a semester long research project on body image. I learned that I was not alone, that "body hating," especially among women, was far more common than anyone had admitted to me. I also learned that common symptoms include making lists of body parts you hate on yourself, not wanting to go shopping, look in the mirror or get on the scale. I had all the symptoms of this so-called "disease," I just didn't have any idea how to cure it.
Researching further, I started to learn about the self-fulfilling prophecy inherent in these behaviors. People who write about how much they hate their thighs, stomach and acne-ridden-face rarely change these feelings by fueling them. People who only buy bigger clothes to avoid the discomfort of anything "too tight", usually grow into those "fat clothes," and then they become too tight and the cycle continues. People who stop looking in the mirror because they hate themselves cannot use the mirror as a tool for self-love. People who stop getting on the scale because they are afraid of it, generally gain weight.
Luckily, there are solutions to these problems, to the depressing manifestations that come out of these actions, I learned. As the saying goes, "you reap what you sow." My first exercise for change involved actually looking at myself in a mirror and trying to love myself. "Fake it til you make it," they say. I started with passing glances in window reflections and public bathrooms until I could build up the enduarance to really look at myself with an inkling of love. Then began the practice of saying nice things to myself as I eventually began to gaze into my own eyes. I don't remember what I said to myself then, but I remember being able to accept that my eyes and my mouth and my nose were "okay, acceptable," even "pretty" and learning to like, nay, love, other parts of myself through this process. Today, I still find special mantras to come back to when I am struggling with something -- like a giant zit in the middle of my face the day of a big event: "I love and accept myself. I'm perfect exactly as I am today. 'I'm only human, all too human.' Thanks, God, and the junk I ate last weekend, for placing a zit in the middle of my face to remind me of this!"
In college, I signed up for 10 sessions with a personal trainer and she taught me to embrace the scale as one more piece of equipment around the gym to support me in getting stronger. Had I not taken the steps towards loving myself already, I never would have been able to do this. Because I had, I discovered the gifts of strength training, cardio, healthy protein shakes and choices to take care of my body. I was able to see how good it could feel to do that instead of stuffing my face with carbs, and refusing to look in the mirror, because I didn't want to see where those carbs showed up on me.
Change comes slowly and with practice. Self-love was my gateway to other forms of loving and caring for my body. It takes three weeks to make a habit, but the best habits actually take years to form, I would argue. It took me years to consider getting on the scale again - to stop weighing in backwards at the doctor's office. Even then, it was painful, though I'd learned to have a sense of humor about it and joke with the nurses, who are just as uncomfortable as you are, or are not, with your weight. How they feel about their own weight is another story, and sometimes you might be the person uniquely positioned in such a way as to share your own story of hope and change with them. After all, these exchanges exist along a continuum of feelings about ourselves and our bodies.
We are not alone in our struggles or our successes. Millions of people across this planet have experienced both of these. Our responsiblity is to stand fully in this moment, in this day -- to find peace in where-ever that may be. The scale is an indicator of truth -- one more measuring stick for where we are, where we've been, and where we want to go. It's just a number with no more or less meaning than we choose to place upon it. As is all of life. My adice is to find your gate-way to begin making peace with it, and know that if you keep taking steps towards doing so, one day you will turn around and see that the war is over!