Data collection

I’ve been feeling so good mentally and physically lately…strong and calm and peaceful. I want to keep this up, so I’ve been trying to analyze what’s changed since this time last year…
1. Therapy
2. Antidepressants
3. Exercise
4. Eating normally (i.e. not compulsively)

I honestly don’t think I’ll ever go back to where I was up until March of this year. So much of the anguish and pain seems to have been stripped out of my soul. But the question is: Is there anything that could cause me to go back to the mirror phobia, scale obsession, body hatred, and compulsive eating of the past? I’d like to think the changes are permanent, but I’m still a bit afraid to trust that they are. I’m trying to figure out how to test the waters. Not having weighed myself for a few months (not weighing was part of my therapy), I decided one way to test was to weigh myself and see what happens...

So I weighed myself yesterday. 176. It wasn’t exactly what I was thinking it would be (I had the figure 173 in my mind). But I didn’t freak out, in fact I didn’t feel anything…which is a new feeling in and of itself…I remember thinking “176...not great but not bad."

I also reflected on when I had started my blog and I weighed 184 and I was SO unhappy and freaked out and miserable. Now, whether the number had been 184 or 174 or 164, considering my mental state, I still would probably have been unhappy and freaked out and miserable. But the fact is...I’ve gone down 8 lbs since Christmas 2008. It wasn’t done with starvation or anguish or dieting. Yes, I watched what I ate the majority of the time, but I also enjoyed good times and good food when the occasions presented themselves. Sometimes I exercised a lot and sometimes I didn’t exercise much. And yet I still lost 8 lbs without really even paying much attention. I honestly think it was because I stopped trying so damn hard to lose weight.

Still, I’d like to weigh 168. For my height and bone structure and age, 168 is probably a good weight and a reasonable goal. So I have 8 more lbs to go and it would be helpful to be able to know if the number is going in the right direction. But how do I handle the “data collection” to help me move toward that goal? I got to thinking about how Roxie puts her weight at the end of her posts, with no value judgment attached. That seems like a good idea. It takes the power away from the number. I might become less emotionally involved with the number if it’s just a number. A bit of desensitization therapy, if you will.

So each Friday from now on, I'll weigh myself and put the number at the end of my posts. Starting now:

176#