No Weigh

I don’t know how much I weigh.

Of course, I have some idea. It hasn’t been that long since I got on a scale. Perhaps a month. But prior to a month ago, I could tell you exactly how much I weighed at any time of day. I had a habit of stepping on the scale everytime I went into the bathroom. Every. Single. Time.

I stopped, for the most part, because I went slightly off the deep end eating-wise in the month of November. I have a crazy realtionship with food. I love it. It doesn’t always love me back. But still, even when I know something is going to make me sick (anything with gluten, which sometimes feels like anything at all), I eat. And eat. It’s my quick cure for feeling lonely, for being sad, for celebrating, for rewarding myself. Occassionally, as in the month of November, I get on a roll, which turns into a bonefide binge. It feeds on itself, until I really have made myself sick enough to stop. The gluten makes it hard for me to get out of bed in the morning, my hair starts to fall out, my period nearly kills me…and finally the pain is bad enough to make me stop.

I’m not proud of that. I want to be the kind of girl whose body is a temple and who never, ever puts anything in it that won’t nurish and strengthen her. I want to eat clean and feel healthy. My brain just isn’t on board yet.

I’ve been gluten-free again since the day after Thanksgiving. I still haven’t weighed myself. I’ve decided to stay off the scale until 12/31/2010. That might seem like a little thing to some of you. Maybe some of you understand how big of a deal it really is to me.

It means that I’ll be forced not to start 2010 with a diet. Because how can you be on a diet if you’re not monitoring your weight? This will be the first non-diet New Year’s Day I’ve had since about the fourth grade. God, that’s a sad sad statement right there. Sad. And true.

It means that if I’m accepted into Goddard College, I’ll go to both the Spring and Fall residencies without knowing how much I weigh. I won’t know if I’m less than my heighest weight ever. I won’t know if I’ve gained weight.  I also won’t know what I weigh when I see my family at major holidays.

Mostly, though, not weighing myself for a year means that I’ll have to rethink my obsession with my weight. So when I eat, instead of thinking about my fat ass, I’ll be able to enjoy my food. And then maybe just eat enough to be full, instead of stuffing myself like the Thanksgiving turkey because I’m back on my diet tomorrow.

So the Year of No Weigh doesn’t officially start until 1/1/2010, but I’m not planning on weighing myself the rest of this year either. I’m fully aware that without keeping a very close and tight watch on my weight, I could gain. A lot. But I really believe that won’t happen. This is the year when I start to eat for my health, and not the number on the scale.

I’d love to have some friends along for the No Weigh ride. What about you guys? What is your relationship with your scale? How do you think your life would be affected by throwing it out for a year?