Day 3: The Number on the Scale

I never started using a scale until my sophomore year in college when my track coach asked me about my weight. I never worried about the number on the scale until then. Since that time, that number has been so important to me. Last semester, as I watched that number slowly drop, its value in my life became very significant. This semester, as I have watched the number quickly rise due to binge eating, I have been plagued with feelings of guilt and shame and am often thinking about the weight I have gained, how fat I feel, and how I wish I could get back to where I was last semester. Being on the track team all through college had a huge effect on my self-image. I compared myself to the other girls on the team and always felt inadequate, wanting their lean arms and legs and visible 6 pack. My looks became so much more valuable to me, which is why I hate seeing the weight I have put on this semester. To most people, I don't look any different, but I can tell a difference. My clothes are much tighter and I just don't feel thin anymore. Why do I place so much value on my looks when the number on the scale and the size of my clothes will never bring me satisfaction? Even last semester when I weighed less, I was never satisfied with the number or my looks. When you try to satisfy the God-filled hole in your life with things other than Him, you will constantly be wanting more because "[t]he only true satisfaction we can seek is the satisfaction of being obedient to the Lord" (Terkeurst, 2011).

Part of me wants to stop binge-eating so that I can lose the weight that I have gained in the past 3 months, but that is the wrong motivation and it will not last. My motivation, as I wrote in a previous post, should be to stop binge-eating for the sake of my spiritual health and because I want to be obedient to God.

I am posting this a day late because I was too busy eating last night. I failed to stick to my commitments again. I ate dinner after class, around 8:30, and just kept on eating well past 9:00, especially after I got upset about something (again, something stupid and so insignificant). I have to discipline myself to turn to God rather than food when I am upset, and even in the times I am happy. This morning I am fighting the feelings of shame and guilt and failure. I am determined to overcome this battle, and I know that it is possible through the power of God. I just have to depend on that power instead of relying on myself.