N(o) S(cale) V(ictory).

by

Please to read this post as merely my experiences and thoughts.

Im an avowed NON-WEIGHER (I encourage you to take a moment and skim that post if you havent before so you know where Im coming from).

It’s what works for me.

I do “say” that I have a pair of jeans I use as a barometer (they should totally fit without my needing to be UBERactive or ANYkinda”dieting”)—-but Ive realized recently I havent even yanked those out of the closet in eons.

If Im honest with myself I know when Ive gained a few pounds and, as long as the weight-gain is in “joy” and not in feeding a feeling, Im pretty ok with that.

If Im feeling as though Im not (read: wanting to shed the excess el bees) I simply pay a little more attention to my PLAYouts & (*gasp*) perhaps add in a modicum of work/ratchet back the play a tad.

(or that would be the plan anyway. These days at 40 & 11 months I’m just happy to be here & healthy.  I may be a little too filled with self-acceptance —flaws and all—but you’ll have that as you age).

But I digress.

What I really wanted to share is this story:

A few weeks ago the Tornado & I went to visit a friend at her new house.

After a we played for a while the Tornado needed to pee pee potty use the restroom.

We went into the master bathroom and, after exploring my friend’s treasures for a bit, she spotted something on the floor.

“What’s that mama?” I heard her ask.  “Is that what you step on to get into the shower?”

I looked over to see what she was pointing to and saw that it was a bathroom scale.

In that moment it occurred to me (truly as a shock) that she’d never ever seen one before!

She’s been weighed at the doctors office.  She’s been with me when Ive been weighed at my doctors office.

Neither of those scales look like the kind my friend had for (finger quote) home use (un FQ).

Thankfully, in her inimitable four year old way, she was off and exploring my friend’s counter top-treasures before I could even decide how to respond to her.

And you know what—–I just left it at that.

It seems these days that childhood is so ephemeral.

8 year olds read these books and talk about blowjobs sexual stuff when at least  this misfit thinks they should still be hula hooping & playing Harriet the Spy.

Im pretty confident she will figure out soon enough precisely what that was in my friends bathroom.

And, if until then, she believes  it’s a stepping stone (?) to the shower stall—-this mamas all about encouraging that erroneous belief as well.

It’s the misfit way I roll.

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Comments

  2. Let’s just say I believed Santa Claus was real until I was 10 and some kid in my class ruined Christmas for me forever after that. My parents were REALLY good at playing along and I love them for it. They let me be a kid, and I had my bad years of rebellion, but it’s all part of the process.

    I think as long as you set a good example, by doing, Tornado will learn 🙂 She’ll have her phases but it’s all part of growing up. She definitely doesn’t need the scale yet. And when she does, well, that’ll be for then.

    For now, ring pops!

  3. This post captured what I am terrified about with regards to motherhood and made me believe I can do it and raise a girl who isn’t as fucked up as I am/was.

    Thank you for sharing.

  4. Wow.

    I stopped after reading this and tried to recall a time when I didn’t know what a scale was and came up empty.

    I’m confident that at her age I knew exactly what it was since my mom spend so much time standing on it and crying.

  6. Wow.
    I have no comment other than the fact I think I was born knowing what a scale was 🙂

  8. I am a little weepy but will blame the fact I’M PREGNANT!! on that.

    I hope my daughter is the same way and MIGHT be ready to toss the scale soon.

    I love the post you linked and like that while so many disagree with you you stick to your beliefs.

  9. I can’t stop laughing!! Kids say the darndest things & as parents we have to sometime roll with it and preserve the innocence.

    ^5 to you.

  11. You are awesome! I hope to be the same when with my children someday. I don’t want them to be a slave to the scale!

  12. We don’t have a scale in our house either. It has been years and years. We did have a scale when they were little, but I kept it on the top shelf of the linen closet, and they only got weighed at the doctor’s office.

    If you ask either of my girls (age 18 & 15) how much they weigh they will tell you they have no idea. And that’s the way I like it.

  15. How great is that! The best part though IMO is that you are the most amazing role model and can bring up a child in this image focused society who is strong and fit and healthy and believes in herself.

  16. This reminded me of what you said about when we practice what we preach there is no need to preach.

  17. Can I just tell you that not only do i have 1 bathroom scale in every bathroom, but I have two in mine. ONe for my weight and the other for my BMI. I got the jeans as well but again, I have more than one pair of the barometer jeans. Hell, I have one pair on today and as I’m sipping my protein drink and eating my yogurt I’m planning the weekend workout which will be kicked up a notch. Believe me. Travel. Gets. To. You.

  18. i wish i knew you when my daughter was 2:( Seeing her battling a weight problem at 14 is breaking my heart on a daily basis.

    i don’t encourage her to weigh herself – just to eat right, and move her butt. Now, i’m just hoping that by letting her see my struggles she’ll be inspired to care for herself better.

    you are a fab mom Miz!
    xo

  19. I clicked on that book link; yucky obnoxious!

    My kids weighed themselves occasionally, but it was always because we wanted to see if they were turning into big kids! They would get happy and excited when they hit another 10 pounds.

  20. Yay for a true victory!

    Love the linked post. I am in agreement with you, even though others in the health and fitness field may disagree.

    Total victory. I hope to have a similar experience with my future daughter one day. Great story to start my Friday!

  21. I like your style! Thankfully we don’t have to wear our weight on our shirts like the Scarlet Letter. We can be measured by the quality of our character and not the number on the scale.

  22. Yes, we have the greatest influence on our children, especially when they are little. But giving them the tools and the confidence to stick with those beliefs WHEN they are out in the world faced with others opinions, prejudice and peer pressure is the BIGGEST challenge for us as parents. And Miz, while I love u and your attitude, for me, this doesn’t quite work. Not being honest and telling her what the scale is leaves it wide open to yes, her own discovery, which will come, but also someone else teaching her the “wrong” control and influence of the scale. Kinda like not wanting to talk to your young kids about sex. They will find out but who do you want them to hear the “truth” from first.
    Just my opinion and what has worked for me as a parent is being honest about what others might try to tell them as kids, but telling them what why I personally believe and value the things I do. AGAIN just my humble opinion.

  23. LOVE that you shared your thoughts, Oh Bombshel!
    and I laugh that my child probably knows more about sex than the average 4.5 year old —-because she has asked.

    I always try and do the DONT TELL HER HOW THE CHAIR WAS MADE BUT HOW SAID CHAIR APPLIES TO HER.

    when she’s asked about how babies were made she was tenacious in her questions…so I kept on answering (at her level of course).

    had she not already been on to the next thing Id totally have stopped and had a mama/daughter moment.

    but she was.

    and Im sure it wont be the last time she spies a bathroom scale and next time Im sure she’ll either already know what it is—or care enough to ask more questions.

    I LOVE that you shared your thoughts as I always want and hope this will be a dialog—not just my rambles.

  24. Scales are evil!

    What I love most about this post is this: “as long as the weight-gain is in “joy” and not in feeding a feeling, Im pretty ok with that.” Because there is so much more to life than stressing about a number on a scale.

    I’m the mother of an 11 yr-old girl who has hit puberty full-force and packed on some extra body fat in the process. I refuse to let her set foot on a scale! I don’t want her to worry about losing weight. She should be more concerned with paper dolls. I just want her to be healthy. If she’s eating nutritious food and staying active and LOVING HERSELF, that’s all that matters in my book.

  25. Scales are evil!

    What I love most about this post is this: “as long as the weight-gain is in “joy” and not in feeding a feeling, Im pretty ok with that.” Because there is so much more to life than stressing about a number on a silly scale (which isn’t a good barometer of health in the first place!).

    I’m the mother of an 11 year-old girl who has recently hit puberty full-force and packed quite a bit of body fat in the process. I refuse to let her step on a scale. There are so many more things she should be concerning herself with (like paper dolls and friendship bracelets). As long as she is eating nutritious foods, staying active, and LOVING HERSELF, that’s all that matters in my book.

  28. I have friends who were traumatized by the scale as children – one in gymnastics and the other by a swim team coach. I think the longer a child can avoid the pressure of a number on a scale, the better.

  29. and as an adult, I avoid the scale. My clothes tell me how good (or not so good) I am doing : )

  30. I was raised without a scale either and to this day neither my parents nor I have one in the house. The first time I ever weighed myself outside the doctor’s office was a few years ago when I saw that my new job had a scale in the bathroom. Now I check semi-frequently because it’s there. I hate that it makes me focus on my weight in a way I never would have before. I think your scale-free attitude is great. That’s how I’ll live for the rest of my life.

  32. I love this, if she had truly been interested in what it was, like my son, she would have persisted and not moved onto to something else. I think it’s perfectly OK to pause and think about how to respond to a child’s question. While you’re pausing, if they’ve moved on, then it prob wasn’t that important to them to begin with!!! 🙂

  33. I don’t have kids, but if I did I would do the same thing as you and let her discover scales and weight and body image (issues) and whatnot in her own due time. I think you’re doing the right thing there!

    But….okay, so I get the fact that you don’t weight yourself. (Amazing, and SO not what I do, but I get it) I also get the fact that you can use something like a pair of jeans to measure your weight/body size.

    What I DON’T get is the fact that you can just know whether you’ve gained or lost, without a scale OR a pair of jeans to measure. Maybe it’s because I’m in the midst of my weight loss, but I not only have ZERO concept of what my body size is at ANY GIVEN MOMENT but I certainly have no idea just by looking at or feeling my body to tell a difference. I get “fat days” and “skinny days” and those days have relatively little to do with the scale. I may drop five pounds, but I FEEL bloated and fat and like a disgusting cow. So…how does that work…this just “knowing” whether you’ve gained or lost? Is it because you’ve been at the same weight for a long time, so you have a good idea of what “normal” is?

    You must have a very well-adjusted perception of what your body looks like. One of my (amusing.sad.) things I do is walk down the mall with my husband. I’ll pick out a woman and say, “is my body the same shape/size as hers?” and 100% of the time I’m completely off base. Sometimes my husband will pick out someone and say, “you kind of look like her bodyshapewise” and I’ll be like, “yosaywhat? Are you on crack?” Yeah, my brain is 100% detached from reality.

  34. I love this story.

    Olivia knows that Mommy gets on the scale all the time. I’m a slave to it (and yes, I’m ashamed to admit it). So when mommy gets on it, she likes to too. She thinks its a game. She doesn’t understand what the numbers mean. But she likes them nonetheless.

    I wonder if that will eventually make hwer weight conscious?

    Aww, damn it..now you got me thinking…

  36. Love this! I’m an occasional weigher, but I mostly go by how long I can look myself in the eye in the mirror. If I’m following my ‘mostly healthy’ eating ways and moving about a lot, I’m okay. Squish belly, be damned. 🙂

  38. Is it because you’ve been at the same weight for a long time, so you have a good idea of what “normal” is?

    I loved your entire comment, Christine and how you summed it all up with the above.

    more a post in a way than a comment-response but the brief version is that it’s taken me 40 years and 11 months 🙂 to get here…but Im here.

    It’s taken me 40 years and ONEMORESHOPPINGMONTHLEFTPEOPLE to get here but I finally am wholly living in my own skin and can FEEL my body.

  39. It’s very cool that your daughter didn’t recognize your friend’s scale and your other post about being a non-weigher had some sage advice.

  40. Wow I wish I had your mindset! I am almost ashamed to admit that I weigh myself nearly every day. (I say almost ashamed – no totally ashamed – because it actually works for me…I just know it’s not necessarily the most “healthy” way to approach my weight loss/maintenance.) I find that if I don’t weight myself I slowly gain weight back, and then one day BAM I’m 10-20lbs heavier. This actually happened to me in 2008-2009…I didn’t realize how much I gained until I stepped onto the scale again and I was a whopping 40lbs heavier than the last time I weighed myself. I knew the hole time that I was gaining…but had no clue HOW MUCH it was. I was totally in denial…never mind the fact that I was buying clothes 2-3 sizes bigger…pure denial. Now the scale is helping me get back on track – I KNOW that I fluctuate daily, it’s the overall trend that I keep my eye on. Hopefully one day I’ll be to the point where I can mentally handle no scale (hell, even once a week!).

  41. You are such an amazing mom :O) I love that you don’t have a scale at home since I’m pretty sure by 4 years old I knew what a scale was (more or less) and by eight was fascinated by that number. This post is exactly why I fight my scale obsession every day, so that someday when I have a little girl she can think of scales as a stepping stone to the tub and stay a sweet little girl just a little longer… thank you :O)

  44. i have one in my house but rarely do I use it. My oldest however steps on it every night and is disappointed that he is NOT heavier! It’s hilarious! he cries that he eats so much broccoli but why (oh why?!) isn’t he getting bigger!? I just keep my mouth shut and smile.

    in my next life, I’m coming back as a man!

  45. This: “I may be a little too filled with self-acceptance” – I love. You can NEVER have too much – most of us don’t have enough.

    My best friend and I are very careful to not mention dieting/weight/negative body image around her (now) eight-year-old daughter. Of course, when we’re alone together it’s a different story…but we are trying to change for ourselves as well as for her.

  46. I like that. It must be so hard as a parent to know when is the “right time” to disucss so many things with your kid!

    And I do feel the same way as you about weight gain. I’m okay with it if I’m HAPPY and eating during social situations etc, but if I’m gaining weight because I’m emotional eating, THEN I know it’s a problem that needs to be dealt with.

    I’m coming to terms with having gained a few pounds. I figure that right now isn’t quite the right time for them to come off- they’ll come off when I’m ready to deal with it. I’m okay maintaining my current weight for the time being.

  47. Like someone else said, I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know what a scale was for…there was ALWAYS one in our bathroom but I also don’t remember anyone obsessing over it unti that fateful day when I was 7 or 8 and the pediatrician told my mother I was chunky…

    One other thing…I KNEW what sex was when I was the Tornado’s age…I just asked my mother to verify it 😉

  48. I get what Jules is saying and it made lots of sense to me. I know that my girl would have wanted more infomration.

    Kids are all different.

  49. Love this, Miz!

    I still use the scale, just about every day. For me, it’s another tool, like my blood glucose meter, to help keep me on track…at present, to just stay put, as I figure out whether I really want/need to go lower.

    What was really interesting was my experiment with a scale that didn’t show the number, but tracked whether you were up or down, and “celebrated” each 10 pounds down. I thought it might be an alternative for maintaining, or for those who get too hung up on the number. It didn’t have a maintenance mode, and I found that it seemed to me even *more* subtly judgmental (tone of voice, messaging) than the silent number on a regular scale.

  50. Precious recognition of the specious, ephemeral childhood.

    My favorite line: “And, if until then, she believes it’s a stepping stone (?) to the shower stall—…” I LOLed.

    Can’t believe the Clique series…gross.

    Thanks for sharing.

  51. I just loved today’s post. I must tell you I no longer let the scale run my life. I REFUSE to let a hunk of metal tell me how I’m going to feel today. Instead, I focus on my measurements, how my clothes feel and I can tell when my body isn’t responding well to certain foods. I wish everyone could step away from the scale and not let it interfere with their progress or allow it to have a hold on them. 🙂

  52. Very cute post! I wish my bathroom were large enough to have the scale be the stepping stone to my shower. It’s currently a stepping stone to my refrigerator which may be just as good for me.

  53. I have no problem using a scale as a tool -as I use clothing and photographs as similar tools. I don’t obsess about the number, but pay more attention to the trend.

    That said, I’m going to suggest that you have maybe 5-7 years before you will need to really pay attention to the clothes (photographs, scale) when that oh-so-fun perimenopause begins and you gain 15# in your sleep.

    So maybe a quarterly check in now to keep in practice?

  54. I am a weigher but I can’t even begin to tell you in words how much I loved this post!!!!!!!!!! You are such a wonderful example for your daughter & many others, Carla!

  55. I LOVE that your daughter doesn’t know what a scale is. It’s a huge part of my goal for myself to reach a healthy weight and throw away the scale. It’s a useful tool for me right now, but I don’t want to be married to it for life. I will be taking you advice upon reaching goal and choosing a “barometer” outfit to help me maintain a healthy weight.

    I do have a funny story to share…my nearly-5-year-old niece is OBSESSED with the scale…and not in the way you might imagine. Every time she comes over to my house, she wants to weigh herself and gleefully crows when she has gained weight. She views gaining weight as a measure of her growth, which I LOVE. I’m so glad my sister is raising her without baggage around her weight. It’s not a good/bad number, but a measure of her growth as a child. (She also loves rubbing it in to her younger brother that she weighs more than him! lol)

  57. My daughter asked once “what is a spanking?” I felt like the mom from heaven, but my son, when he was 2 and my husband and I were talking about Monica Lewinsky asked “what’s a blow job?’ My husband said it’s when you blow out the candles on your birthday cake (poor husband, it’s all he knows of that 🙂 )

  58. I love it. As someone who was an active, healthy-weighted, but much more…muscular and sporty child than some friends, I obsessed over the scale as early as junior high. Sigh. If I could be that weight now…

    But I digress. I’m considering ditching the scale for a while. It’s just frustrating me right now, but I have a feeling I’m frustrating IT with my highly imperfect food choices and then expecting it to go down anyway. 😉

  60. I am a non-weigher as well. Don’t like the scale – don’t believe in it. My 20 year-old college student daughter is unfortunately not the same. She has sent me message after message lately asking about diets and pills, etc. I have talked her out of them so far. Gave her advice for exercise and better eating. Lordy – who put such stooopid ideas in her beautiful mind?

  61. I don’t own scales any more, and haven’t since I came back to NZ to live after 5 years of living away in the UK. I do weigh myself at the gym on a sort-of-weekly-or-fortnightly basis, but I’m trying to treat that number as an… interesting fact of “what is” right now, and stop myself from attaching any “good” or “bad” value to it.

    My “goal weight” is one at which I can do the 100km walk I want to do in 2011 without having the uphill sections completely wreck me, the way they did in 2009 when I did said walk. In some ways, after losing close to 10kg with all the half-marathons and 10km events I’ve been doing since January this year and just trying to eat more healthily most of the time, I’m already there – despite only being about halfway to the weight number range I’d initially set myself when I started trying to bring my weight down late last year.

    But I’m still at the point where hills are slowing me down, even if they’re not wrecking me, so I’m quite happy to keep on “doin’ what I’ve been doin'” thus far, and hoping that, combined with a lot more (and a lot tougher) hill training, bringing my weight even further down than it is now will have me dealing with those &^*&^%^%%^ uphill sections even better come April next year

  62. I love Debby’s reply! (Ha! I’m going to start using the scale to step into the shower, too!)

    Great post, Miz! And yes, I agree — keep her curious about more important things for as long as possible.

    Good thing all she saw and asked about in the bathroom was a scale. … 😉

  63. This story was so cute! And I must thank you for leaving me a comment on my blog. I weigh myself everyday, I admit it. But it helps me gauge how I’m doing and so forth.

  64. I can see the day when being a non-weigher is doable. But not until I get down where I need to be. Fromthere using the technique of allowing your present clothes and how they fit to tell you if you are gaining, losing, makes sense. look forward to that day.

  65. As she was growing up, I’ve avoided words like diet and fat, didn’t talk about my weight and referred to eating healthy and having fun playing outside. All this to keep my daughter from obsessing about her weight. Once in a while she still says “I look fat.” She is 5’4″ and weighs 115 lbs. Maybe I should have tossed the scale too.

  66. Love the photo of you and the Tornado, love the scale story, love the message! I struggled with my weight for a while when the teenager was growing up (he just graduated from high school!), and to be honest, I didn’t always talk kindly about myself. I think I wasn’t “careful” “because he is a boy.” Which I know is very wrong… I’ve since learned a lot… I’m much more conscious with the toddler. But I do realize that we have a scale in the bathroom, and the toddler loves to weigh himself. It’s fun to him at this point. But maybe it’s time for the scale to go away…

  67. I haven’t had a scale in my house for 10 years, as long as my daughter’s been alive. She’ll jump on one anywhere we are, though, probably because her friends have them or she’s seen them at the JCC. She knows I only get weighed at the doctors’ offices (and I’m really trying to curb all my negative comments I make about “doctors’ scales afterwards!)

    But I taught her this mantra when she was little: “We’re not going to let a mechanical object tell us to be happy or sad.” She’s quite ferocious about it!

  68. Love this post girl. And I love Harriet The Spy too!! It makes me sad to think about what girls growing up in this day and age have to deal with….luckily yours has a great momma with an amazing life philosophy!
    XOXO

  69. This is so very cool.

    My own daughter currently uses the scale (in our bathroom) as a stepstool to wash her hands. She has never seen either me nor my Hubby use it for anything else…

  71. Love this post and the comments.

    The innocence of children is sooo precious. I’m glad most parents still believe in letting children be children.

    I want to thank-you for a comment on my journal a week or so ago. I nearly fell over when I realised one of my heroes had not only visited but left a note.

    Thanks for the visit.

  72. Will you please adopt me?? It’s not too late for me, right? Seriously, the scale has been a fixture in my house for as long as I can remember. This last weekend, in fact, was spent mainly discussing my father’s miraculous 30-pounds-in-40-days weight loss (he ate 500 calories a day). It’s a sickness.

  73. What a COOL thing that your daughter doesn’t even know what a bathroom scale is! I grew up with one in our house, because my Mom had a small weight problem.

    Wish I could say my house is scale-less, but for me, the pants test doesn’t work so well. I can gain 20 pounds and still fit my current pants. Or lose 20 pounds and they fit much better.

    But I’m not weighing as much as I was, several times a week rather than every single day. I don’t bother if I know I’ve eaten salty or eaten out. But I gotta do it, or weight creeps upwards. I need the frequent reminder.

    Hope some day I will need the scale less or not at all!

  75. You’re a good mom. Your story reminded me of when my 2 yr old son with Down Syndrome took an IQ test. He was very advanced verbally, and aced the test (identifying pictures) except for one item. He was totally flummoxed by the picture of the ironing board. You don’t do the scale, I don’t do ironing!

  76. all 4 of my kiddos love the scale and hop on it whenever in my bathroom…to them the more pounds they weigh, the faster they get out of their booster/car seats! 🙂
    Go figure.
    I choked a bit when I clicked the link about what 8yr olds read! Yikes! I have a 10 yr old who is just now showing interest in those books, but we made a deal a long time ago that if she’s not sure about a book I read it first. It’s worked for us!

  77. Tish – ROFLOL! Now that’s a good thing to be ignorant of.

    My daughter (20) gets enough weight drama from her jeans. I am trying to convince her that its the manufacturer’s fault for not realizing that real women (even fit women) have curves!

    My son (16) is wrestling and knows exactly how much he weighs/ But that’s a whole ‘nother disordered issue.

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  2. […] using the scale (um, as much)/not sharing my info this month, here are some good no scale posts: a no scale victory for Mizfit – her daughter doesn’t even know what a scale is. And a post from Jen, who has decided […]

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