Bariatric Foodie Play with your food
I shared a guest post I wrote on the blog of Dr. Arya Sharma. Shortly after, I gott an email that said the following:
“How much did you weigh before? What do you weigh now? How tall are you?”
No hi. No “this is who I am and this is why I am asking.” So let’s put aside for a moment the fact that that is rude (and it is…I’m a person beyond my weight and I do deserve for someone to say hi to me before asking ultra-personal questions!), the experience brought to the surface one of my…I guess you could say…resentments…about this process.
Weight is important. I’m not going to say it’s not. It’s an indicator of many different things that affect your health. But each person’s starting weight, current weight are relative and subjective. What does that mean? That means that YOUR success is about where YOU came from and where YOU want to go. It depends on YOUR body, YOUR genetics, YOUR lifestyle, YOUR choices.
That means nobody can judge your journey but they especially cannot judge it in numbers alone.
Here’s what the scale won’t tell you about me. It won’t tell you that I was a food addict in denial before surgery. It wouldn’t tell you that I used food to cover up a lot of pain I was afraid to face. The scale also won’t tell you that when I was unable to eat my emotions I was FORCED to learn to deal with them in a very abrupt and sudden way. And guess what? I survived that!
The scale won’t tell you that I love physical activity. I’m competitive. I push myself very hard to do and be the best I can be. The scale won’t tell you how I smile at myself in the mirror now when I never did before. The scale won’t tell you how I feel in my favorite “little black dress.” The scale doesn’t know that I used to hate being touched but now I reach out to hug people. The scale doesn’t know how I used to hide from cameras and now I love pictures.
The scale didn’t get me through my mother’s untimely death. Nor did it go up when I did. The scale didn’t teach me how to talk about my pain and grief and to reach out for help when I needed it. The scale can’t say how seven years after surgery I am still working toward being the best me I can be.
All it can do is measure the change in mass in my body.
I’m more than my weight, Foodies. You are too. You are so much more. You are doing things that are improving your health, probably elongating your life. I say this a lot: time is the ONLY resource you can spend and never get back. So the time you are working to buy is precious. Don’t let the scale – or what’s on it – rob you of what you KNOW you are doing, which is good things.
