Mind, Body, and Scale

Exercise is how I take care of my body.

From birth, we are measured by a scale. It wasn't until last year that I realized that when I go to the doctor I could choose to get on the scale with my back facing the display. I started doing this to eliminate the power the scale has had over me. Back in 2020 when I went to my primary care doctor, I was told to try to lose ten pounds by my next visit. It was the first time I was told to something like that. 

The one thing in my bathroom I avoid using.

I didn't realize how much that affected me until recently in a therapy session. The doctor from 2020 told me to take walks, for a half
hour a few days a week, to help lose the weight. So, I did just that. I took walks multiple times a week outside in the middle of the summer in North Carolina. The number on the scale didn't change much over the next few months. 

By 2021, I figured I would adjust my diet. I tried plant-based eating for about 3 months, with a seafood or poultry meal once every thirty days or so. It was then that I started seeing a constant decrease in the number on the scale. However, it was short-lived. Between my graduation, moving across the country, and starting a PhD program, plant-based eating became a thing of the past and of course the number on the scale teetered back to what it was in early 2021. Now at present day, the scale says I'm over twenty pounds heavier than in the summer of 2020. 

Over the past few months I've realized that I've been struggling with my feelings about my body. Since COVID arrived in 2020, my body is different. It's thicker in some places and rounder in others. So different that I sometimes don't recognize it. Some days I struggle to like my current body. My clothes don't fit how I would like them to fit. I know some may think, "Well, why doesn't she just get new clothes?" Well, it's not that simple for a couple of reasons: 

1. I am a PhD student on a fixed income, I can't buy new clothes every time my clothes don't feel comfortable. 
2. When I do shop for new clothes, it's hard to find clothes that fit the way my body is curved and such. 
3. It's not an end all be all to the way I feel about my body. 

Also, this is a new feeling for me. I am someone who was always confident in my body in my younger days. I would flex, wear short shorts, crop tops, tight fitting items, and all the clothes one would wear to show off their body. Of course, I've had moments when people have said not so nice things about my body (DON'T BE THAT PERSON!), but I was so confident that it didn't faze me much. Now, I think it bothers me so much because I have no idea why I feel this way. 

I know there is nothing wrong with my body. In recent doctor's visits, I haven't been told to lose weight. I haven't really been around people who make backhanded comments about the weight I've gained. It's just that the body I had 2-3 years ago, was one I had grown comfortable with, then suddenly it changed. Whether the cause be COVID, getting older, or just genetics, it was something I no longer felt I had control of. Especially since I was doing all the right things like eating healthy, exercising, getting enough sleep, and staying properly hydrated. Nothing on my body really changed. Of course, my weight would fluctuate, but not enough to make it clear that I was moving toward my goal of losing x amount of weight. 

Feeling strong in my body is a great feeling.

Now that I've realized my feelings about my body,  I'm working through them by exploring ways to affirm and admire it. I hope that as I unlearn everything I have been programmed to think about body weight/size, I can develop I healthy relationship with my body again. I hope to focus less on what I weigh, and more on how my body feels and how I feel in my body. 

Until next time. 

Peace & Blessings ✌🏾