Identity Beyond The Scale

Disappointment and Discovery of Self

Public restrooms now offer a myriad of hand drying options. From stiff, dark brown wood composite to high-tech, temperature-specific mini wind turbines that use UV light while peeling the wetness off your hands with pressurized air, you just never know what you’re going to get.

It’s always a surprise. Recently I got a tissue-paper-type solution that seemed even more delicate than what was on offer as a bum wiper. It disintegrated on contact. My hands, still wet and now covered in the pilled detritus of what had once been paper, were somehow worse off than if I hadn’t washed them at all. It threatened to wreck my day.

My own bathroom, every single day, offers that same potential, for uplift or for morale destruction. It holds the power to ruin my day. I talk myself through this regularly, and yet the potential still endures. Whether the scale rewards me or cuts me down can set the tone for everything that follows.

Part of my identity is this number. It’s not entirely rational. When I try to concoct a mental profile of who I am, the elements that make me, me, very little of it has to do with physical attributes. Sure, my physicality plays a role in how I show up in the world, in my ability to be a husband, a father, a friend. But it’s not the thing itself.

I am, for example, a bald man. Not in some absolute, cue-ball sense, but enough to make the label stick. And yet, being bald is not something that regularly factors into how I think about myself. It’s a fact, not a definition.

And still, this number, this weight, holds sway. The number happens to be much lower than it once was, too. That should help, right? And yet…

Every morning, despite many years of maintaining a statistical average, I am either failing or successful. I am either who I’m supposed to be, the me I intend and imagine, or a version that is a failure.

I’ve learned to walk myself through it, at least to some degree. I expect fluctuations now. A drop on the scale, I know, is often just an anomaly, nothing to celebrate. So if that’s true, then an upward tick should be treated the same way. It should not matter.

Today, the scale mocked me with a +3 lb increase, and for a moment, it was as if my entire life had no meaning beyond total failure. Ten years ago, that might’ve sent me spinning, a downward trajectory of intentional destruction. If I’m going to fail, I might as well do it entirely.

Often, what I tell myself to feel is at odds with what actually shows up. That’s okay, because the intensity has lessened.

Noticing the reaction, naming it as undesirable, and choosing to hold onto that belief, that’s helped more than anything else.

Recognizing that I was feeling something unwanted, something unneeded, and being able to cognitively separate that emotion from reality… that’s what’s helped.

It requires that recognition and labeling, yes, but I’ve found some form of action to be invaluable as well.

1. Name it.
   The thought, the feeling — acknowledge it for what it is: negative. And in the context of my own goals and pursuits? Unhelpful.

Brandy has this really cool piece of artwork by Michael Scoggins — it’s about six feet tall and looks like a giant sheet of lined notebook paper, the kind from school. Written on it, over and over again, are the words: “I will not act out on the bad thoughts.”
I mentally reference that painting a lot.

2. Exercise.
   Nothing gets me out of my head faster than movement. If I can get my heart rate up and get a sweat going, my attention is pushed outward, and my sense of well-being skyrockets.

Even just a walk will do in a pinch. Turning my phone off, keeping my eyes up, and moving forward with intention — that’s paid off more times than I can count.

3. Actions.

   What am I doing right now that proves this negativity wrong?

Journaling.
Meal prepping.
Going to the grocery store.
Even having my on-plan breakfast.
These are daily steps that reinforce the truth, that I am not the sum of a single thought or a single number.

The lure of giving up is embedded in that negativity. So I walk straight through it, with some whey protein and water, a handful of berries, or a few minutes spent writing honestly about where I’m succeeding and where I need to tighten up.

I spent the better part, really, the entirety, of my life as a fat guy. And that identity never served me in any positive way.

When I wanted to ask a girl to a dance in junior high but didn’t, because I knew she wouldn’t want to go with a fat person.
When I sat, huddled and clothed on a beach, not wanting to distract from the aesthetic experience the other beachgoers were having.
When I avoided the gym, because I believed it was only a place for fit people.

Carrying “fat guy” as part of my identity didn’t just shape my self-perception, it reduced my life.

So I reject it. It persists, but its power over me has diminished.
So I reject it again. And again. And again. I move, I take action that reinforces my own position in positivity.

I am not this number.
I recognize it. I use it for the trend data it gives me over time, it’s useful in that way.
But it is not me.

And when the public restroom leaves bits of paper on my hands now, I simply wash them again and dry them on my shirt.
It’s okay. The water will evaporate in a matter of moments.

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