Weigh No More!

The scale, such a small, unobtrusive item that might be sitting somewhere in your bathroom gathering dust. Or, for someone with an eating disorder it can become an addiction, an obsession, something you cannot get through the day without. It feels like it keeps you safe because if you can control the number on that then you can control everything. Sound familiar?

For someone with an eating disorder, constantly seeing the number on the scale can negatively impact self-worth, emotions and daily food and exercise choices. This is why I will always encourage clients to be blind weighed when in eating disorder recovery, either by their face to face therapist, a trusted family member of by a GP. I don’t necessarily care about the number on the scale, what I do care about is the trend that I see. If the number is constantly going down or staying the same, but you are telling me that you are doing the work and following the plan then something isn’t adding up. It’s to keep you safe and allow you the space to focus on healing your relationship with food and your body.

Stepping on the scale and knowing your weight during recovery can provoke intense emotions (guilt, panic, shame) which, in turn, can drive ED behaviours. Blind weighing allows you to a) remove this potential trigger, b) stop fixating on and obsessing over a fluctuating number and c) trust your team to monitor your progress while you concentrate on recovery and fighting the eating disorder.

Eating disorders often develop as a coping mechanism to numb or feel in control of certain emotions. As they develop you start to ignore other physical sensations such as hunger, fullness, how you are feeling in general and your overall wellbeing starts to play second fiddle to the eating disorder. Not knowing your weight allows you to re-learn how to listen to, trust and respond to your internal cues like hunger, fullness, and energy levels in a calm and appropriate way.

Honestly, the weight on a scale is the least interesting thing about you, yet it can feel as though you can’t get through the day if you don’t know what it says. Does anyone else know what your weight is? Do you introduce yourself to new people telling them what the number on the scale is? Is it something you are going to tattoo on your head or sign off your emails with? No. The only “person” who truly cares about the number on the scale is your eating disorder. There are so many more parts to you than this one piece of information - perhaps you have just forgotten what those parts of you are and you need to re-discover them as part of your recovery journey.

And just some food for thought - excuse the pun. If you are fighting to maintain a body size or weight through restriction, dieting or over-exercising, then that is not the size or weight your body wants to be. We need to learn to honour our genetics and accept ourselves whilst we nourish ourselves with food for energy, strength and enjoyment and move in ways that make us feel good both mentally and physically.