My Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life

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February 28, 2008
19 Comment

Am I really so shallow?

Scale3I think about happiness all day long, and it really makes me sad to realize how much my happiness is affected by seeing a two-pound swing in my weight. Zoikes. Don’t I know better?

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Bootstrapper has a great list of 100 tiny tips to improve your mood. Just reading a list like that improves my mood, even before I try any of the tips — I love tip lists.

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  • http://nilesgibbs.com/ Niles Gibbs

    Don’t be alarmed!
    Your weight can vary by as much as 13 pounds from day to day, given the combination of food, water, and air that goes in and out of your body every day.
    Change in weight doesn’t necessarily mean a change in fat.
    I recommend reading the Hacker’s Diet: http://fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/
    It covers how people can psych themselves out, think that their weight isn’t under their control, even when they’re actually losing weight. It’s what causes people to abandon diets, because large swings (seriously, if you only eat a pound of food a day, how can you gain five pounds of fat?) scare them into stopping.
    Ok, no more preaching for me. ;)

  • http://usr-bin-mom.com Michelle Potter

    @Niles, is that so? I figured weight might vary a pound or two, but not as much as 13. That’s crazy!

  • chutters

    I agree 13 cannot possibly be true.

  • Nick

    Girl, if 2 lbs sends you into fits despair, you need to rewrite your commandments. Specifically:
    #8. Identify the problem.
    Nick’s Tip: Either the Earth’s gravitational pull just got stronger or you’re holding on to a couple of lbs. Big deal.
    #9. Lighten up.
    Nick’s Tip: At least the two pounds you gained isn’t a malignant tumor.
    #10. Do what ought to be done.
    Nick’s Tip: Time heals everything. In a day or so, your body will even its weight out again. And think, in 80 years from now, no one will give a rat’s behind about your two lbs. Really.
    #11. No calculation.
    Last time I checked, weighing yourself included numbers. If you’re comparing today’s weight and yesterday’s weight, you’re calculating. Stop it.

  • Ester

    All of us are superficial, self-centered western citizens. Even those who don’t admit it. I’m not being cynical, but I do think that it’s a part of us. Call it a socio-cultural imposition, whatever.
    By the way, here’s a link that I think you will enjoy ( and your faithful readers too): http://www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/blog/2008/02/27/12-great-ways-to-be-miserable/

  • http://www.empoweredreader.blogspot.com Jennifer

    Sounds like you are having a bummed out day. :( We all have them. I know for me sometimes, I get so wrapped up in helping other people that I lose perspective on my own life. I just started reading this great book called Time Power that helps you keep things in perspective.
    Are you sure there is nothing else bothering you? Do you need some time for yourself? Take some time if you need it.

  • http://www.wellbeingandhealth.net Evan

    Superficial? Well, it looks like. Sounds like time to look at your judgements and if you like them.
    Tip list drive me nuts, before I’ve got started on one there’s another come along!
    Weight can easily vary a couple of pounds from day to day. More than this and something else may be going on. You may want to look at the kind of calories you eat – fat is digested a little differently to sugar (Rosemary Stanton – an Australian nutritionist – has a good book on this, sorry, I forget the title).

  • Cecily T

    Hey, 2 lbs is 2 lbs and if it makes you happy, be happy about it!

  • http://vorare.wordpress.com Christina

    I fully recommend accepting one’s weight and body shape as they are. That single step has done more for my happiness than any other.
    Start here, and hate yourself less instantly!
    http://kateharding.net/but-dont-you-realize-fat-is-unhealthy/

  • http://www.grace303.blogspot.com Heather at Grace303

    I won’t comment on the 2 lbs issue, since I don’t know if you meant that you gained or lost them, and in any event, I think you usually have a very healthy attitude toward those sorts of things. I liked the list of 100 tips. One talked about reaching out to a friend, which reminded me of a prior post. It seems like I read on your blog that, while social connections are important, it may cause you to stay down in the dumps if you are using your time to re-hash what’s wrong with your friend. In other words, that by continuing to talk about what has you down or frustrated, you fan the flames, so to speak. Do you remember this post? If so, I would be interested if you could point me to it. Thanks!

  • http://hongkongmilktea.wordpress.com/ adora

    Well, me too! I even upgraded to a digital scale. Now I also obsessed with fat percentage, bone density and hydration level…
    There is a legitimate reason to be happy about weight loss. People assume you have a better life when you lose weight. When my friends see me gaining weight, they would act strange like an (overweight) elephant in the room. When I lose weight, most friends are happy and excited for me while frienemies are trying to feed me extra calories. Therefore, weight does affect social life which is part of happiness. At least for single girls.

  • Lisa

    take it from a recovered anorexic….get rid of your scale! If your favorite tight jeans don’t fit quite right, then you know you need to go for a little longer walk. Every day you base your value on a number on something that has no value? DON’T GIVE YOUR POWER AWAY !!! Vain…no. Do you think you have accomplished something of value when you are losing weight? How about just waking up feeling like you got a good nightS sleep and feeling accomplished about being in good physical and emotional health. What an awful way to start one’s day by stepping on a scale…..add to list of things to do: THROW OUT SCALE.

  • Jessica

    I’d like to applaud your honesty. Admitting your difficulties (and, even, as you say “shallowness”) is really difficult. However, I absolutely agree with Christina — accepting (really accepting) your body for what it is has been the single biggest step towards happiness I’ve made in the last 20 years. (And I’m 26.) I used to weigh all the time and I would be completely happy to see weight loss, and feel completely defeated (crying, mental self-flagellation, starvation, the whole deal) when I gained weight, even a half pound that could have been water weight. Finally, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I stopped weighing, stopped counting calories, and pretty much stayed the same. And I am SO MUCH happier.
    (Honestly, the only posts of yours I don’t like reading are the posts about food. E.G. No more fake food, eat on smaller plates, give up cookies, buy plastic portion size indicators… It all just reminds me of how exhausted and guilty I always used to feel. No thanks!)
    And like Christina, I love Kate harding too! Start looking though the archives of http://www.kateharding.net for discussion of the radical notion that we needn’t hate our bodies to be morally acceptable people. :)

  • Judi Hale

    This is part of an article I wrote for an online blog a few years ago. It took me 6 months to lose 65 lbs. and I don’t obsess with weight. As someone pointed out, it can vary by 13 lbs.in a day. Personally, I have seen mine be a 6 lb. difference. And I do NOT care. My weight also fluctuates 125-135. I still don’t care. I keep size 8′s and size 10′s as I enjoy eating,and abhor dieting. I did not diet to lose my weight, I ate my meals on a breadplate, then dropped down to saucer size the last two months of losing. I still limit the amount I eat but I gave up nothing that was good!
    Basic Nutrition with Judi Hale.
    Weight Loss
    by Judi Hale, f.f.
    6-25-2005
    I have some really good news………and some really bad news.
    The good news is: there is one PERFECT diet.
    The bad news is: The name of this diet is “If This Tastes Good, Spit It Out. NOW!”
    In case you are wondering what the degree letters behind my name stand for,
    be advised it represents Former Fluffy and that is a qualification, of sorts,
    in that I am no longer fluffy.
    Until I reached my early forties, I was one of those people we really love to hate with my size 3’s and the ability to eat anything I wanted without putting on weight. Oh, I flaunted it and bragged about it when someone would comment about how thin I was and how fortunate not to ever have to worry about calories. In retrospect I look at the pictures of me when I was that perfect 36. That put me somewhere around the 12”, 12”, 12” measurements, and folks, I am here to tell you, there is nothing attractive about a stick with clothes on. There is no definition to a body like that, no boobs, no butt, skinny little toothpick legs and I even qualified for a chest tattoo.
    It would have read “IN CASE OF DEATH, THIS SIDE UP.”
    I will tell you the exson for things going awry. Yes, I did mean exson.
    All of us that suffer from the overweight problem either give an excuse or a reason.
    The reason was legit to start. Prednisone was prescribed for my arthritis and one of the bad side effects of an otherwise “miracle drug” is the weight gain and water retention and craving for food and more food. The excuse was giving in to the cravings, i.e.: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches everyday and Chip Ahoy cookies. Only four at a time sufficed and the craving hit often enough that a two pound bag didn’t last much longer than a 24 hour day did. I figure mine is somewhere in between and the dictionary wouldn’t give me a word so I invented one. If Daniel can do it, so can I. Bottom line. I got fluffier and fluffier until my 103 pounds
    became 187 pounds at the end of one year.
    Can you imagine what the salesclerk in the “Large” ladies clothes shop was thinking
    when I paid for my first set of 1X sweat pants and shirt with tears streaming down my face?
    It was a real Catch 22 trade-off. The Prednisone did help the arthritis
    but…at the end of 4 years, I started experiencing other bad side effects along with the “ugly” fat. Forget fluffy, steroid weight is ugly, puffy, porky looking FAT!
    To be continued…

  • http://myspace.com/paulacarino Paula

    If you are upset about a few pounds, it sounds like good old fashioned free-floating anxiety disguised as a body “issue.” If it weren’t the poundage, it’d be some other random thing.
    To add a judgment of “shallow” to that just adds to the anxiety. Give yourself a break. You are clearly not shallow, you’re just having a bad moment. It’s probably gone by now. You’re ok. Deep breath. Try some EFT, take a yoga class, take a nap, have some water, etc.

  • http://www.robschaumer.com/blog/ Rob Moshe

    It’s all about being married to the outcomes. When we step on the scale we expect it to be the same or less, if it’s not we are disappointed. If you needed to gain two pounds you would be elated, and losing two would frustrate you.
    With regards to the scale in particular, I recommend avoiding it. Eat well, exercise regularly and like who you see in the mirror. If you are happy with how you look then who cares about what the scale says.

  • http://deardazzy.blogspot.com susan missing dazzy

    No wonder you are looking for happiness!
    It sits in the DEEP end of the ocean; you are but in the shallows, both literally and figuratively.

  • http://livelighter.org Steph

    Thanks for your open and honest post. And I don’t think you’re shallow, at all.
    When I struggled with my weight, which has been most of my life, it (unfortunately and without my obvious consent) ruled much of my happiness.
    But I changed things when I switched my focus from my “weight issues” to healthy living. Now, I live lighter (the name of my blog) in body, mind and spirit.
    How? Because of my daily choices. I choose only to do things that bring me joy and that also promote my health.
    By doing this, I’ve lost 43 inches and 43 pounds in the last year. Concentrate on your happiness and health, and weight issues (both mentally and physically) disappear.
    Thank you for this post and for your happiness project. I look forward to more great and inspiring articles. Keep up the fabulous work!

  • kb

    Yes, with all due respect, I think you are shallow and self-absorbed. The poster below is right – happiness is in the deep end of the ocean. Go work with some people who have real problems – women in prison trying to get their lives on track and back with their children, children who are hungry, etc. – there are so many worthwhile causes that could use your resources and you would benefit as well. Then you won’t have to try so hard to be happy – it comes with the package of all of life’s other emotions when you are living fully and willing to authentically engage in life. I read your book for my book club and it should be an interesting discussion. But I would recommend you check out a recent article in the Huffington Post by Nancy Colier. There’s a much deeper world out there and there are people who need your help much more than your closets do. I think you mean well, but this is what’s wrong with our self-absorbed society these days. You have some good tips in the book but with the problems we are facing these days, those of us with resources and lots of good fortune need to be doing what we can to alleviating the suffering of others. I hope you learn that some day.

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