The Battle of the Scale

I hate weigh scales.  It is a deep and long-held hatred I have for scales.  I think in my fantasy 'Blakey's Dream World' Where I would be emperor and be able to eat ice cream all day long while basking in the glow off of my manly sculpted pecs I would not allow scales to be invented or used.  Scales make me nauseous, have clammy hands, I get all tongued tied and can't breathe.  Seeing a scale makes me feel as though I am about to see a Dr. for the dreaded 'Turn around, this will only take a minute' appointment as he puts on the white glove and rubs vaseline over the finger tips... yeah I hate them that much.

I think it all started when I stepped onto my grandma's scale back in the day.  It was pink, with a white face and had one of those spring loaded dials that had numbers that went up to 250.  If you went over 250 it would just swing around until you were looking at a smaller number.  I guess that meant I was supposed to add 250 plus the smaller number.  You can imagine my horror the first time when I thought I had broken the thing.  'GRANDMA!!!! I broke your scale' 'Oh no you didn't you're just too fat'...

One fond memory of a scale is when my brother decided that he wanted to see how much I weighed.  I think I was 16 or 17 and we had an upgraded digital version of the thing-which-should-not-be-mentioned.  He is 7 years older and one of the strongest men I know, and he thought it would be funny to get me on one since I had such an aversion to them.  After knocking lamps off their stands and pulling doors off their hinges my brother finally wrestled me onto the scale where it proudly produced a '00' reading.  Which apparently was the scales' way of saying 'Get OFF OF ME!' Once again I was too heavy, but I was happy my brother wouldn't get the satisfaction of actually seeing a number.

I once went to the Drs.' office and they were using one of those really accurate 'move the big weight to the end of the arm contraptions' I took one look at the nurse and said 'Just write down the max. weight cuz this thing doesn't go high enough'...

After avoiding scales as much as I could throughout my adult life my hatred was renewed by a Christmas gift.  Once I got our Wii-Fit all set-up it proudly displayed the fact that I was huge and not allowed on the board... I wanted to take the board and present it to the creator and show him where he could put his fitness board (My next blog will be about my 'Journey through Anger').

Scales are a big part of Weight Watchers, and there it's even worse because you have to share it with someone, it's a really big deal, and when you do well they are so happy for you, and when you don't do well they try to be so encouraging 'well what are you going to change this week'?  Usually I wanted to reply 'I am going to eat a big bag of chips and dip and the biggest bottle of coke you can think of so I can come back and break this damn scale for reaffirming my already fat existence!' However I would always smile with dimpled cheeks and very sweetly tell them 'I am going to run more this week, or I am going to 'track' (write everything I eat down) this week'...

So this week I made a mistake in the war against the scale, I weighed myself on a different scale, at a different point in the week... NOT GOOD... for those of you who don't know, scales are tricky, they are mean, and they are LIARS!  You should only weigh yourself once a week, and you should only use the same scale.  I didn't follow these rules and I stepped on a scale that told me I was gaining weight! I wanted to throw it around and show it what I could do with my extra weight.  When I got home, I told my wife (Amy) who ensured me and calmed me down that it was all the scales fault, and not mine, it made me feel a little better, a little... I was at the gym yesterday where the scale that I used last week is, and even though I wouldn't say I trust it or like it, I can tolerate this one.

We eyed one another from across the change room, its silver chassis gleaming in the bright lights.  I could feel it smiling at me saying 'C'mon big boy I got you this time...' I was scared, I was sweaty, I was breathing heavy, so much so the guy beside me moved lockers.  I walked up to it, took a deep breath and stepped on.  The numbers scrolled by quickly and finally came to a rest and when I opened my eyes I smiled.  I could hear music as I read those magical numbers, 408.  Sure to you it might be a pound lost, but to me it's one step closer to victory.