The Kitchen Scale

The Kitchen Scale

‘Tis the Season!  Given that we just ate Thanksgiving dinner last week and that the holidays bring gingerbread men, sugar cookies, eggnog, peanut brittle, fudge, hot chocolate, and other high caloric goodies, I thought it was a good time to post my thoughts about weight.  Maybe not, but this little “essay” has been in the workings for a long time.

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As an eleven-year-old I used to weigh myself daily.  Our scale was oddly positioned in the corner of our kitchen like a caution sign for overindulgence.  After my 6:30am workout each morning in our basement, I’d stop in the kitchen to weigh in.  In the 80’s, KBYU, a network out of Provo, UT, produced an amateur fitness show called, “Hooked on Aerobics.”  Limited to four channels, this was my choice of free exercise.  Three women each did aerobics on one of three platforms.   The platforms measured about three feet in diameter.  Each platform was designated High, Medium, or Low, indicating the intensity of the workout.  The woman on the lowest level looked a bit ridiculous because she barely moved her body.  She often used props, like a chair, to assist her.  On the other hand, the woman doing high impact aerobics jumped up and down with boundless energy.  (I wonder if she now has shin splints, knee problems, or plantar fasciitis.)  All three dressed modestly, in different colored leotards, tights, and “tennis shoes”.  I’d typically follow the “medium” lady, bouncing around on my carpet, while the women on television somehow managed to bounce around on their small platforms.  My motivation:  the scale. 

A recent phone conversation with my mom reminded me of my subsequent exercise regimen, after my stint with “Hooked on Aerobics.”  When my mom answered her phone she was noticeably out of breath.  “Did you run to get the phone?” I asked.  “You sound out of breath.”  “No,” she explained.  “I am running in place while I talk.  I figure that since I spend so much time on the phone I might as well get some exercise.”  I laughed.  I could almost feel the carpet under my feet as I pictured my mom and me running around our house almost twenty-five years ago.  The cream colored shag carpet, with specks of black and brown, was soft beneath our bare feet.  We’d run through the master bedroom, through the two connecting bathrooms, around the girls’ bedroom, down two flights of stairs, through the living room on the main floor, around the kitchen (passing the scale), making a tight loop around the dining room table and then back up the two flights of stairs to begin again.  It was another form of free exercise and we enjoyed doing it.  My mom lost a considerable amount of weight too.

I thought if I were thin, I’d like myself more.  My older sister Jody wore a size zero and she was a sophomore in high school.  I couldn’t even fit into her hand-me-downs.  It was glaringly obvious that we were built differently, but through my underdeveloped sense of self, I felt inferior.  Kari and Jalynn, along with many of my friends, weighed less than 100 pounds.  I knew that I was fat and I wished I were skinny.   So my addiction began with the scale, my weight, and my appearance.  Society’s messages only reinforced these erroneous beliefs about my body.

All freshmen at BYU were required to take a course called Fitness for Life.   Students dubbed it “Fitness for Death,” mostly because everyone dreaded the one mile pre- and post-test run on the track in the Smith Field House.  However, the mile run didn’t weigh on me as much as the body fat measurements did.  All the students in my class were asked to wear gym clothes to class on a particular day.  I felt so nervous and self-conscious the day we had our fat measured.  I remembered being hydrostatically weighed in junior high school and discovered for the first time that my percentage of body fat was too high for my age and height.  I hoped that my results at eighteen would be different.  There I was in a room full of over sixty freshmen, both male and female, face to face with my insecurities.  I was so embarrassed when some random male P.E. major approached me with his fat caliper.  He pinched the flesh on my upper arm and then on my thigh.  The worst was my waist.  My embarrassment changed to utter humiliation when the complete stranger informed me that my body fat percentage placed me in the overweight category.  He told me that I would be on a weight control program during the semester.   His words stung.  This special “weight control program” consisted of dietary restrictions and separate “weight-control” exams, different from the healthier students.  I tried to approach this with humor, but inside I was devastated.  I had exercised since I was eleven years old.  What was my problem?

BYU had a testing center, a separate building where students took all of their exams.  It was basically a building full of anxious and stressed-out students.  Testing “police officers” wore bright orange traffic patrol-like vests and paced up and down the aisles to watch for cheaters.  There were often long lines of students waiting to show their student IDs and request a specific test.   Each time I took a test for Fitness for Life I was so uncomfortable.  I didn’t want the people around me to hear me ask for the weight control version of the test.  My heart beat faster as I approached the desk.  Guarded, I asked the young male student behind the counter for the weight control test for Fitness for Life.  I pretended not to care that he knew I was fat too.

Last year I postponed my annual physical because I really didn’t want to get on the scale.  My fixation with the scale has outlasted my teen years and accompanied me into adulthood.  After having two children, I have been as critical of myself as I was during college.  I don’t find solace in statements like, “The number on the scale doesn’t matter.  What matters is how you feel.”  Or “Don’t pay attention to the size of your jeans.  Buy what fits you and what looks flattering on you.”  Anyone who has ever had a weight problem knows what I mean.  I longed to get on the scale and see magical numbers.  I dreamed of trying on jeans at the mall and fitting into a super small size.  

I still exercise.  You could say that I’m hooked.  I actually enjoy running and spinning at the gym and thrive off of the endorphins and other physical benefits it provides.  But I still hear the nagging voices in my head that constantly remind me that I’m fat, that I don’t measure up, that if I lose twenty pounds I’ll like myself better.  My 40^th birthday comes in 2011.  I’d like to end this obsession.  This personal essay on weight has been in the draft form for years in my mind, for over a year on paper, and it’s still not finished.   

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