Slippery Scale Slope

I sat here tonight in complete panic and not wanting to eat because my doc made me take Milk of Magnesia. I didn’t think of the relief it would bring to my IBS. About the fact he is my GI doc and knows what’s best. About the fact of how constipated I have been. About the fact it is getting worse each day I don’t go. Nope….all that mattered to me is how it would make tomorrow’s weigh-in imperfect. I wouldn’t be able to draw any conclusions on the food I ate today based off tomorrow’s weigh-in because MOM may affect.

So my solution: don’t eat. If you can’t judge the food what is it’s purpose. Why eat scary foods if I won’t get the instant feedback tomorrow about whether or not they can be eaten about whether my body can be trusted. Well first off…tomorrow’s weigh-in can’t really reflect today’s food except maybe it’s pure weight. Second off…if I don’t eat them now…then when the heck am I going to eat them. And third…let’s be honest. If weight goes up tomorrow food will be first thing I blame..if wt were to go down I would blame anything other than the fact the food was safe.

This is what happens in anorexia. This is how the scale takes over your damn life. It doesn’t measure your health like doc’s use it for. If that were the case the lower you plummet the more scared you get. No….it measures whether you should eat safe or risky, if the foods you ate were good or bad, if you are sick enough to recover yet. That’s what the scale becomes about.

Weighing once a week isn’t enough….what if you miss an uptrend and miss a learning opportunity about food. So you go to once a week and any day after you eat fear food. But thanks to anorexia your fear food list grows and every day you end up eating a fear food…so then you weigh every day. And then it becomes the only way to tell if food safe or not. The stupid number on a stupid machine gets to dictate your list of foods that are edible. Seriously…that’s fucking messed up. It’s completely irrational too now that I write it out. And it’s fucking sad. The reason I can eat the food I can is because I deserve to.

So what if the slice of cake makes me gain a dang pound. Seriously…who cares? Because won’t eat cake every day and any weight changes the cake causes (or my mind blames the cake for) will be gone when I don’t eat cake. Why is it all about numbers? Why can’t I judge the safeness of food on something else. Why can’t I make a food list based off taste instead of off what it does to my weight? Why can’t all food be safe? Why: because I am a slave to a scale. I let it decide for me. And you know what’s dumb…I eat the fear food again either due to pressure from N or others…and guess what…usually it doesn’t make me gain weight the second time. Why? BECAUSE IT’S NOT THE DAMN FOOD! It’s just fluctuations.

So in the grand scheme of things what is better. To avoid medications so my weigh-in is “accurate” (which it is the farthest thing from since any and all interpretations are through ED and will always make food the enemy) or take my medication and keep on with my life because the scale doesn’t freaking matter. The second is the easy answer here on paper….but tonight…tonight it’s the fear I need to face. That starts with dinner!