Scales are for haters

I don’t have a scale in our house.

Maybe it’s because we raised 3 and a half daughters and all the emphasis on weight and numbers for girls is soul crushing and I decided long ago I wasn’t gonna have any part of it.

But then again, I don’t remember having a scale in my house growing up either. Maybe because my dad was fat – really fat – and didn’t need a scale to tell him. Or maybe because we too had a house full of girls and while weight wasn’t the albatross it is today, it must have been an identity issue and my parents weren’t playing.

I didn’t have one in college. Or my first apartment. Or the ones after that. Or when I first got married.

I do remember the weigh-ins when I got pregnant and proudly climbed up on the scale in the ob/gyn’s office week after week, amazed at the size of my girth and especially my voluptuous breasts.

God, they were fabulous. Really, they were. Glory days.

Sigh.

My jeans have been my scale, and when they scream for elastic, I realize I gotta hit the trails a bit more. Or the gym. And maybe layoff the Jalepeño chips and cut back on wing night.

Except something happened on the way to the middle of life.

The trails and sneakers don’t get the job done. Not anymore. And slowly but surely, the pants don’t fit and you don’t know how it happened but somehow there’s every size from 6 to 16 in your closet and you have no idea which are new(ish) and which are older than your flown and grown kids.

Hint: it’s the sixes.

Kid2 recently traveled abroad and had to weigh her luggage to ensure it didn’t have to purchase its own seat, so the rather attractive hubby ventured off on his own study abroad to Target, and low and behold, there’s a scale in our house.

I couldn’t weight to get on that scale. Wait. Weight.

I have been walking, wogging, jogging every day since the New Year – 10,000 steps and 20 push ups every day. Simple goals and resolutions. Okay, maybe ten push-ups. Plus sit ups, as many as I can with Sneaky Pete between my knees.

Not anybody named Pete. Not any body at all. Just Netflix on the cellphone streaming Sneaky Pete, wedged between my knees while I crunched up and down, down and up. Twist. Turn. Up down. Every damn day.

Yoga on Fridays, nice yoga not mean yoga. I am woman hear me exercise and damnit, I am strong. I am healthy. I am fit. I am woman. I can button my jeans.

All this physical activity – I could feel my bikini body taking shape, resuming the position, like a slinky put back in its box.

I climbed on that fancy black dark shiny scale and waited for the magic numbers to appear and reflect 1980something in all its shining glory and proclaim in its digital spotlight:

“Gurrrl. You hot. Smokin’. Yo sexy mama. You’re how old? Impressive, you hot mama you.”

When the blinking stopped, my eyes adjusted and behold, I weigh as much as I did when I maxed out full term prego 25 years ago when I gained a remarkable 100 pounds. Not a typo.

How is this even possible?

I went from feeling strong, sexy, healthy, invincible, powerful – to fat, frumpy, old, dumpy, and really, really sad in a matter of digital micro-moments.

Just. Like. That.

Ten thousands steps a day, and the only one that I replay in my head over and over again is the tiny step on a shiny black scale.

Sooo…..

I don’t have a scale in our house.