Earlier this year I made the decision to cancel my YMCA membership. Financially and physically it just wasn’t making sense for me anymore and I’ve reallocated my membership $$ to the Hot Yoga Spot. I haven’t regretted my choice at all. Well, almost not at all.
I was only taking one class a week at the YMCA, a schedule I have replaced with a wonderfully hot and sweaty hour+ yoga class. That’s all good. What I have been missing, however,* is access to the YMCA’s locker room scale. You see, I don’t have a home scale. At least not yet.
Do you own a scale? Do you use it? Me? I’ve never really had a scale in my home before. At one point, I had an extended vacation at a friend’s house in California. This “vacation” coincided with a romantic break-up and I quickly dropped about 10 lbs before I even noticed. Once I became aware of my decreasing weight, I forged a new relationship – with the scale. I found myself weighing in first thing in the morning and again before bed. Sometimes I stepped up to the scale before, or after, a meal or visit to the bathroom. I realized I was becoming a bit too dependent on the digital feedback I was receiving and initiated my second break-up of the summer – with the scale.
In the many years since then, I’ve always resisted the urge to bring numerical judgment into my home. But, I had my weekly YMCA weigh-ins (naked, of course) to keep me on track. For the last 4 months I’ve been trying to push away my need to self-validate through my weight. Instead, I’ve practiced checking in with how my clothing fits – how are those jeans feeling, Silvia? Is that top still pleasingly fitted or has it become snug? But, it’s been hard and I find myself wishing for an opportunity to step on to a scale to see exactly where I’m at presently. I mean, what if my clothes have all stretched out? Or, terrifyingly enough, shrunk? How will I know?
Please weigh in and share your own scale experiences and obsessions.
*Missing beyond the friends I made at the Y, that is.
DelSo 
I also prefer to listen to my clothing over my scale. I get a bit too hung up on a number if I see it, but when I shift my focus to “how healthy do I feel/look?” as my perspective, that works. Of course, I jump on the scale every few months now just for curiosity/science (and like you, as naked as I can possibly be in the locker room, which usually amounts to me in unders).