Smash your scales!
Hope everyone had a wonderful, relaxing weekend with gorgeous weather! I want to start things off with a bang this week by sharing a letter I received from a fellow Locker Room Diaries reader (she gave me permission to post it) - the first paragraph makes me so proud, I could explode!
Dear Leslie,
I just finished reading your book Locker Room Diaries. It struck me as funny as in the ending you said something like "I'm not asking you to go out and smash your scales...", when actually, that's exactly what I did after reading the FIRST chapter. I took BOTH (yes, both, I had 2 scales) out to the garage, but them in a garbage bag and smashed them with 2 of my dad's sledge hammers, one was a metal hammer, one was rubber. They make those things pretty durable, just so you know.
Little background on me: I've always been a chubby child, in high school my highest weight was 230, I was able to lose weight and get down to 160ish my sophomore year in a healthy way through diet and exercise, but when I started gaining a little back I freaked out. I eventually developed bulimia (I'm in recovery now though), and I've been struggling with my body image ever since.
Your book hit everything right on the nail for me. I'm not very good with writing down my thoughts, but while reading your book it felt like it was written by me, everything you wrote was exactly what was in my head. The anxiety I always felt in the gym locker room being "the fat girl", always showering with my bathing suit on...
I don't want to ramble on, but just know that your book has GREATLY helped me. Everything is coming into perspective for me and I can finally see the light at the end of the awful tunnel of self-hatred. I have an online journal at xanga.com, a friend from that site said she can't believe the change in my self-image attitude.
I'll include a link to it if you'd like to check it out. I started reading your book around July 13th I think.
Thanks so much, you don't know how much you've helped me!
Now, I'm not putting this up here to toot my own horn, but rather to show the power of what can happen when women of a feather flock together, when we encourage each other and pump one another up. If someone says something and it rings true to you, tell them! Just knowing this reader actually SMASHED HER SCALES because of something I wrote is reason enough for me to have even written LRD. And I don't have a scale myself, but I am now on a frigging HUNT to find a used one, maybe at a secondhand store, with the express purpose of bringing it home, taking it into the alley out back and breaking it to bits! The $5 will be SO worth it. If there are any fellow Chicago readers who want to join me with their scales, let me know and we can do this together, like a mass bra burning but for body image. In fact, maybe we can make this a "Smash Your Scales Across America" kind of thing - we all agree to take them out at a certain time on a certain date and kaplow! The weight-lifting heard round the world. How cool would that be? Who wants in??
X,
Leslie
PS I tried Pilates for the first time and I'm just feeling *eh* about it - I think because it was an intro mat class, the teacher went easy and I didn't feel like I was doing anything new. I did, however, take a phenom power yoga class today that helped me release a lot of stress and I walked to and from the gym, two miles each way, soaking in the perfect 75 degree sun and breeze. Then we ate Thai food.
Oh! And, I had my first real martini this weekend - extra dirty with four-cheese-stuffed olives. Man, that drinks eats like a meal. I only finished a fifth of the glass but I loved it - so salty and naughty-tasting. Guess I was all about unbalancing and balancing the past few days - Pilates...dirty martini; yoga...thai food. Lots of fruits and veggies tomorrow!
Comments
Ah, the smashing of the scale. Many have told me to do that, but that won't be happening anytime soon.
Like the woman who wrote that letter, I too have two. My good one (the digital) and my old one, from 80 years ago. The old one travels with me sometimes when I go away, b/c that's not obsessive. :)
A lot of my NY friends want to take my scale and drop it off a high rise. Eh, they'd have to tie me down to get them!
I am also a fan of power yoga over Pilates. I must have had an easy teacher as well!
Have you tried Calanetics? It is a great ghetto-fabulous workout (circa 1986, no less) that I do in addition to yoga...it's a combo of ballet and pilates moves, truly wonderful. I highly recommend it and you can buy the videos on Amazon.
With any class it's all about the teacher. I think I prefer my yoga class over pilates just because I like the teacher's style better.
