Resolution, Setback

This past New Year's Eve, Herself made several resolutions.  Self-improvement goals!  So quickly they fall by the wayside.  One, however, she has kept to date:  she resolved not to step on the scale for an entire year.

Like many women, Herself has a complex relationship with food.  Eating serves not only as a survival mechanism, but also as a consolation, as stress relief, as a pleasure. Complicating matters are the many foods which trigger headache or migraine; preparing an appropriate, non-toxic, non-fattening, and satisfying meal is quite tricky at times. Yet her weight, her body image, and her self-confidence are all intertwined and must be balanced against her eating habits.  This year, she decided to focus on eating more nutritious food, exercising regularly, and assessing herself based on how she feels and looks rather than the number on the scale.  She tries to eat well and to work out; she occasionally lapses, but consistently picks up and tries again.  So far, so good.

There are many times she has been tempted -- particularly when she is feeling self-conscious -- to just step on the scale, to verify the number, to see whether she is within her mental "acceptable" range or in the "unacceptable" range.  (Sadly, there is the slimmest of margins between the two ranges.)  She knows that this is the precise thinking that she is trying to counteract by NOT weighing herself, however, and so she has abstained from doing so.  She even consciously averted her eyes from the scale during any doctor's appointments, so as to keep her resolution.

And now, a single off-the-cuff comment has nearly defeated her.

Thursday morning, the Physician's Assistant breezed into the dreary little examination room, apologizing brusquely for the wait, and reviewed the salient points of the routine visit  in her grating voice.  She flipped casually backwards and forwards through the chart, looking at a year ago - "down seven pounds from the year before", to the current information - "up six", and then discussed the thyroid hormone levels that were the purpose of the visit. 

Fortunately, all relevant lab results were acceptable, so Herself could tune out the Physician's Assistant as she vocalized the writing out of the standard prescription and filled out the paperwork.  Herself instead fretted internally:  UP six? What was it last year?  Was that when she was borderline too thin (down seven?) when recuperating from surgery? No, that was months later.  Does she remember how much was it then - and can she calculate how much it is now?  Is the number now in the "unacceptable" zone?  Was that why her jeans seemed a hair tight yesterday, or was it because they were fresh out of the dryer?  Why is it she thinks she can get away with poor eating habits and not show the consequences?  Why is she not working harder to work out more faithfully?  How does she really look?  She berates herself for lacking the willpower to eat better, for being too lazy to exercise more. 

She sighs, and her self-esteem sits dejectedly in the corner, longing for a cookie.

So frustrating.  Although she dutifully kept her New Year's resolution, the casual comment by the Physician's Assistant has metaphorically put her back on the scale, where she unhappily imagines a number she does not like.  The battle to find the right mindset, to try harder, and to redraw her self-confidence, begins all over again.