I’m Obsessive-Compulsive enough, thank you very much …

I read this story a while ago. The tagline is “I weighed myself every hour for the entire bank holiday weekend. Here’s what I found out.”

It’s interesting in a few ways. I mean, first of all it’s interesting that somebody would do this. And, yeah, some of the findings are kind of interesting.

But it makes me all kinds of freaked out. Because, for a while, this was my life. With one even more radical addition – I also used to eat while on the scale. Yup, while weighing myself. Not sure why I would do that, other than to torture myself, because surely that’s a way to guarantee your weight only goes up, but it was something I did. (You can read this post if you want to know more about my history with anorexia).

We don’t have a bathroom scale in our house. Actually, we have no kind of scale in my house. This seems normal to me, but possibly it’s not.

It’s a conscious decision. An alcoholic probably shouldn’t keep beer in their fridge. If you have drug addiction issues, it’s possibly a good idea to get rid of your stash. I have been, in the past, a weight addict and it’s no fun.

Having no scale in our house makes a few things tricky. I have to remember, when I’m at my parents’ house, to get my kids to weigh themselves so I know things like when they can graduate from a car seat to a booster (years ago), and so I know where to set the DINs on their ski bindings (now).

I remembered to do this the last time we were there. Before I know it, I’ll be making that trek to the ski shop – probably dodging soggy snowflakes, lugging multiple skis – and I’ll have to say, “He weighs 110 pounds,” and “He is 127.”

So, I went and found my parents’ bathroom scale, and stuck it on the flat tiled floor in the hall, and called my kids in to jump on it. Exclamations, laughter. It’s fun to be heavy when you’re a growing boy. You love gaining weight. Then the adults thought they’d get on, too. “Oh, I didn’t think I’d be that much,” was met with “I think that’s pretty good – you’re doing well.”

When everyone was done stepping on and hopping off, I leaned forward. It was like the scale was drawing me in. I sort of, nearly, almost contemplated getting on.

But that would be disastrous. Where weight is concerned, there is no good number for me. If I’m heavier than I expect, well, ’nuff said – it’s the end of the world as I know it. If I’m what I would expect … well, why am I not lighter? If I’m lighter than I could imagine, then a slow panic sets in – “must stay this weight – must not go up.” Which, of course, would lead to further “checking in” weighing. Which, of course, could culminate (if one were very obsessed, which I have a history of being) in hourly weighings.

As to hourly weighings – well, while I think checking Facebook hourly is probably a waste of time, I think it’s much less of a waste of time than stepping on a scale every hour, so I certainly don’t want to end up there again.

Back to my parents’ scale, my mom said “You’re not getting on, are you?” and I shook my head and said “Of course not,” and bent over further, and picked the scale up. “Just putting it back.”

So, that bullet was dodged. And I’m glad.

Because I have enough to obsess about – raising happy children, keeping our guinea pigs alive, tracking books sales, and website stats, monitoring (not as often as I should) the investments in our RESP, etc. – without obsessing about three numbers which, lined up in the wrong order (1-5-2 instead of 1-2-5) could throw me into turmoil.

I’m not going there.

Grace, in my first novel, Objects in Mirror, also had some issues with the bathroom scale. Here’s what she did about it:

As I stumble into the bathroom in the morning my body feels heavy but not in a bad way, rather in a calm, relaxed, gravity-still-hasn’t-released-its-hold-on-me way.

I flush, wash my hands. On autopilot I prepare for my morning weigh-in. Toe the bathroom scale out from the corner where it lives. Breathe in, then out, whooshing every spare bit of air from my body, willing lightness into my step as I raise my left foot…

…and freeze. No more numbers. The words – or something like them – swim back to me through 11 hours of solid sleep. Leave me balancing, one-footed, as I prepare to get my first number of the day. Success or failure right here in front of me.

I lower my foot back to the floor.

I’m not going to do it. Adrenaline chases away the last remnants of my sleep slowness.

This ends here, now. Movement outside catches my eye. Annabelle walking towards the house. Where has she been this early? It’s garbage day.

Oh wow. I’ve got to move now. Before the garbage truck comes. Before I give in and climb onto the scale after all. Before I lose my nerve.

I dash back to my room – pull on a pair of jersey shorts under my nightshirt – return to the bathroom and in one quick movement, scoop up the scale and head downstairs.

Quiet. In the kitchen the kettle’s roiling, the morning radio host’s giving the weather, and the clinks and dings of dishes and cutlery tell me Annabelle’s unloading the dishwasher.

I ease out the rarely used front door. Unlike the side door, which Annabelle refers to as our personal disaster zone, there are no stray shoes here. No handy flip-flops to slip my feet into. It’ll be a barefoot trip then.

Ouch! Yike! Poke! The sharp gravel up close to the house is killer. It gets better further down the drive as two smooth strips emerge; worn flat by the frequent passing of the car tires. I can walk almost normally here. The smooth clay is even mildly soothing to the soles of my feet.

Then I see the snake. I yelp, jump and drop the scale. Hesitate to pick it up lest I discover squished snake underneath. Nothing. Phew.

The scale is probably broken though. Or at least that’s what I tell myself. It makes it much easier to stuff it on top of the bag of kitchen garbage, pushing the lid down firmly on top again so Annabelle won’t see what I’ve done.

I scamper back to the house. The way back much is much quicker and easier without toting the awkward scale. I step back in just in time to see Annabelle disappearing up the stairs. Jamie’s awake. Perfect timing for me.

By the time she comes back down with my bright-eyed brother chanting “Cheewios! Cheewios!” I’m in my spot at the table, with a piece of brown toast in front of me, eating an apple one slice at a time. Reading the book I grabbed from Annabelle’s library pile in an attempt to distract my brain from the automatic mental calorie-calculating it’s become so skilled at.

Are we going to have a fresh start or rehash last night’s argument? If it was my dad I’d pick (b). With Annabelle I’m betting on (a). I’m right. “I told you if you picked up that book you wouldn’t be able to put it down,” Annabelle says.

I smile. Take a bite of toast. “Perfect. That’s just what I need right now.”