Day 15: Introducing magical scales from the USA

Because my body dysmorphia is real, and numbers on scales set me OFF

Yes, this territory is the territory of weight management, body dysmorphia and growing up when ‘heroin chic’ was the thing. It might not not be the Unf*ckery topic you want next, but it’s the one you’re getting because I’m the one with the keyboard (up here in this section that is, you can go ham in the comments though. 🤣) Saying that, this is fair warning that you might not be feeling in the mood or position to think about scales, number or weights right now, and that’s totally grand. Don’t do it to yourself. Close this, it’ll be here on substack another time if you feel like reading it. (Body stuff is hard sometimes, and it’s not your fault. I love you).

So here I am, starting to write this post on ‘weight’:

I feel ready, but I’m not totally ready. Today’s post will consist of a photograph or two of the scale I mentioned in the title, and an quick explanation of why, and what it does.

Here it is:

Not even out of the f*cking box. (Had it weeks)

Ok, I’ve just opened it:

This is a numberless scale. It uses 5 different colours to let you know your progress, instead of you seeing a number. It’s intelligent, works with an app on your phone and also learns your fluctuations over the month (I think) so it can account for, and let you know your progress “…while accounting for your personal patterns in weight variance”. I think it also monitors body composition/body fat percentage too.

I don’t know if any of this is true, because it arrived three weeks ago and I paid for the app, but I haven’t turned the f*cker on yet. But I’ve thought about it, ya know. 🤷‍♀️

I guess I didn’t want the first bit of Unf*cking in this 90 Days to be me focusing on getting myself back in shape. I have spent toooooo long worrying about my body to make it the headline for this, but it’s definitely a byline. And it can have a headline for how it feels and operates. The pure aesthetics though? Not so important (I try to tell myself this).

I’m more than my body, and actually even more importantly than that, I love and am grateful for my body for still working after so much pain, injury and trauma. Except when I don’t love my body of course. When I hate it.

That conversation, the one where I share the way I pinch my tummy and suck in as I go past every mirror in my house, or lift my top and frown at the jiggle, or look at photos from before lockdown where I was in AMAZING shape and shake my head with loathing for the shape it’s in now… that conversation isn’t today. But it’ll come I’m sure.

I know I’m probably not alone, but equally hope I am and that no one else has a similarly multi-layered, complicated and often negative, exhausting relationship with their body. But if I’m unf*cking things then it’s about time I gave this a go. I’ve been judging, hating-on and punishing my body since I hit puberty and boys twanged my bra, flicked my nipples in the corridors and slapped my ass in the tennis courts - all unbidden and unwanted, making me uncomfortably aware of having a body at all, and definitely devastated that it was not one that looked like Kate Moss’. It’s time I gave myself a chance to see what a gentle way of genuinely loving that body feels like.

And I mean genuinely loving it. Not only when it’s toned and fit, when it feels ‘empty’ and lighter, or when I’ve hiked 30 miles a day over mountains so can eat what I want. Gently and slowly I need to unpick the language I use around it, moderate my expectations of what I can achieve and how long it might take to achieve it, and take slow and steady steps toward both creating a body I love, as well as loving the body I have.

I’m FIERCELY irritated by phrases people use when others say they’d like to lose weight or get fitter. Phrases like ‘Oh, but why don’t you love yourself how you are?” Well, why don’t you pipe down? I can do both things. I can learn to love myself in every shape and form that I show up in (a lifetime’s work in anybody’s money btw) AND I can quite rightfully and without justification decide that I’d like it to be lighter, leaner and fitter, and by doing so be kinder to said body by feeding it the right nutrition, sleep, fuel and sunlight.

That’s the goal: Health. And I need to lose a little weight to help that happen (as well as all the myriad other things I’m going to be doing for this little bod) which is where the scales come in.

Numbers on scales make me do shit things, like restrict food on some level, loathe myself when the number goes up inexplicably, or give up entirely and hopelessly binge. Because of this I avoid them like the plague, but what doesn’t get measured is less likely to get managed so I do need a way to monitor if I’m going to start to head in the right direction, and this new scale (not available in the UK of course, ffs) is it.

So, soon (who knows when) I’ll be measuring all my body parts like some kind of Medieval anatomical sketch of an farm animal and then turning on these scales to stand on them. And I’ll be recording these things (and maybe some photos argh fucking hell no) somewhere to monitor how I go with the plans and routines I have in mind for the next…errr 75 days! And telling you about it all too. Woo Hoo! And f*ck too, of course.

Let me know what you reckon! P.S.there is absolutely NO recommendation from me to get one of these. It might be absolutely shit! I bought it myself, haven’t even turned the fecker on yet and don’t know how it works. I’m not selling it to you, and I won’t put anything on here that’s gifted or a placement at all, so no worries on that score.

Love you lots! Gail x

Links and things:

A good article about the Shapa Scale from Wired here

Another article from Health.com here