Living by the number

  I think we have all done it. We weigh ourselves- no matter what the number is we always wish that it was something better. Maybe it’s less and maybe it’s more than we want it to be. I know for myself I have struggled with the numbers for more than 14 years- over half of my life. It seems not to matter what the number says when I look down- I am never satisfied.. There is something in my head that tells me that I weigh too much, there is some that I need to lose. Let’s back track for a minute...
     My obsession with the numbers started during my years of swimming, I would compare myself to every.single.girl. that was on my team. I started to see them as enemies instead of teammates. “Why can’t my legs be as thin as theirs?” “Why are they skinnier than me?” “Why do they swim faster than me?” I don’t know what number I thought I should weigh- but I remember thinking that all I had to do was stop eating.. just exercise more and more. I would do crunches, leg lifts, push ups every day. Worse I would weigh myself more than 5 times a day. That number would help me starve myself- I didn’t deserve to eat because I was a fat ass. My dad would pack me a lunch and I would throw it away everyday. I would go to swim practice for 2-3 hours on a completely empty stomach, running on powerade alone. The obsession continued throughout my teen years, and really become something that I couldn’t avoid. Lets just fast forward to get to the point. I knew that I had to get rid of the scale because there was just no way I could heal mentally with that thing in my house. At the time I weighed 118. I held strong and lived without the scale for a few years. I never felt comfortable in my skin so it was hard to judge if I had gained or lost weight- It came to the point that I saw a photo of myself and realized that I indeed had put on some weight, and I freaked out when I broke down and bought a scale.. I weighed 134.. (Now I had messed with my diet quite a bit I’ve been vegan- but then raw, and mostly fruit.. and the fruit diet really screwed my body up.... ) I immediately started dieting.. I just wanted to get back to 118. But I wanted to do it in a healthy way. I started back in August- counting calories and working out consistently- practicing yoga, and cardio. Unfortunately 1 month later- my ankle got injured, and though I did take a break for a little bit- I got right back about 2 weeks later...I went down to 127- and I have not in more than 7 months been able to break that number. I have struggled with this, seriously. I don’t know what else I can do- I eat well, I workout consistently 5-6 days a week. I’m just trying to focus on being strong and healthy.