Scales are often a painful part of a fat-girls world. In fact, in a fat-girl’s world, there are many objects of shame that trigger a deep sense of failure: the seat belt extender on an airplane, the too narrow chairs in a convention hall, the restaurant booth that only someone the size of Olive Oyl could fit in comfortably, the bucket seats in a friend’s car, and the obesity scale at the doctor’s office.
Recently, I was thrilled to be able to step on the regular, weights and balances scale in the doctor’s office, instead of being escorted to what I had unofficially dubbed The Obesity Room, and stepping on the cattle-sized scale.
Keep reading to discover why I am celebrating, and calling this week’s post Button Accomplishment: Scales
Scales
When you have spent your life in a super-sized body like I have, there are certain handicaps you come to terms with, and certain embarrassments you resign yourself to deal with. Scales are one of these.
For a Button Girl, scales can be painful. Scales can define your self-worth. Scales can so affect your self-perception, that every action – both public and private is tainted by the scale’s opinion of your body image.
(That is what makes the Button Journey so powerful, because it strips the scale of it’s power. Click here to read more about the Button Journey.)
Scars From Scales
was in junior high school the first time(it was called junior high in my day, not middle schools) I realized the scale was my enemy. In a room full of 12-year-olds, standing in my one piece blue and white striped gym suit, I stepped on the doctor’s office style scale to have my weight recorded for the President’s Physical Fitness Challenge and the school nurse loudly announced that I was “off the charts.” There was no sensitivity training in those days, so I was abruptly and publicly told that even the President of the United States thought I was too fat to be in his program.
And each visit to the doctor’s office was excruciating because they always took me to a “special room” to be weighed on the “special scale.” (For you skinny girls who might be reading, that means that you are presumed to weigh over 350 pounds so a standard scale won’t work for you. The obesity scale is a huge, computerized contraption with railings on each side.
And then there was the Insurance Salesman who guffawed, and told me I could not so much as put one toe on his scale for fear my largeness would break it. (Until the Affordable Care Act obese people could only get insurance through employer group health plans. Weight was a huge factor as to whether one could or could not get health insurance.)
And so, for most of my adult life, the scale was my foe. An ever present reminder of my failure.
Button Accomplishment
Until recently, when for the first time in my memory, instead of the nurse at the doctor’s office escorting me down the hall to the special scale, I was able to use the normal person’s scale that was right there in the exam room!
This was a true Button Accomplishment!
Granted, I still have 100 pounds to lose, but the simple transition from the Fat Person’s Scale to the Normal Person’s Scale meant that I was progressing. Yes, my Button Journey has not been perfect. And yes,I have had setbacks, and almost gave up reporting on my “buttons/no buttons” each week. But standing on the normal scale, was huge for me. Huge!
SELF-PERCEPTION
Self-perception is a big part of my Button Journey. If I perceive myself as a morbidly obese person who is relegated to the Fat Scale, then my behavior tends to reinforce this perception. And if I buy into that, then the inner merationalizes, “I’m never going to be normal, so why try?” But when small goals are celebrated, such as transitioning to a normal person’s scale, self-perception begins to change, and suddenly I start to believe that a new reality is possible.
You cannot consistently perform in a manner which is inconsistent with the way you see yourself. ~ Zig Ziglar
What we can or cannot do, what we consider possible or impossible, is rarely a function of our true capability. It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are.
Our self perception determines our behavior – if we think we are inadequate, we act that way. If we think we are splendid, we act that way. -www.selfawareness.com
The above quotes resonate with me, but they aren’t nearly as powerful as the Holy Bible which says: [Tweet “”As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.”(Proverbs 23: