The Day I Stopped Worrying About My Weight

For years, okay, decades, my New Year’s resolution would involve weight. Which seems ridiculous, because when I look back at photos from my 20s, well, though I’ve never been “skinny” and heaven knows I’ve never been tall, I was fine.. Looking at that one photo on a sailboat in Mexico when I was 24, I maybe was better than “fine.”

But as a female living in a society fueled by media and marketing, I couldn’t help but chase an airbrushed ideal. I suppose being put on my first formal diet by a doctor when I was eight years old didn’t help.

Several years ago, on a chilly winter morning, I had a moment of clarity. I’m sure it was driven in part by the realization that there is less sand remaining in the hourglass of my life. Anyway, the realization was this: I wanted back all of the time I have wasted over the past five decades worrying about, thinking about and obsessing about my weight.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. We can’t get back the time we’ve squandered. But I said no more.

That set into motion part of my New Year’s planning. In addition to setting goals and intentions for the coming year, I also identify three things that I want to stop doing or worrying about. Since the day of that epiphany, the top of that list has been … my weight.

I literally wrote it down: This year, one of the things I’m going to stop worrying about is my weight.

It hasn’t been perfect. There are still moments when I can’t help but look at how my butt looks in a favorite pair of jeans and I don't care who you are, shopping for bathing suits is hard. But formally setting that intention, having that list which I review at the start of each month, well, it helps.

And I think it has worked. I don’t think working to put a pin in the weight worry has had any negative impact on the number on the scale. But I don’t know for sure, ‘cause I gave up the daily weigh-in too.

Now, just because I have committed to not worrying about my weight doesn’t mean I have given up on fueling my body with the nutrition it needs and moving my body in ways that feel good and make me strong. I have simply worked to disconnect those things. I eat things that make me feel good. I move my body because it makes me feel good. And I try not to worry about the rest.