Diet NRE and True (bodily) Love

Every morning I turn into a bit of a sadomasochist. Emphasis on that latter part. It’s when I step on the scale and that damned thing tells me exactly what I never want to hear. The truth.
And every time I turn into that person I’ve come to hate. My boss. You know the type – they set an impossible target…you do EVERYTHING in your power to make it….and then when you do? They just set an even more challenging one. Like that’s a reward for all your hard work. I’m the same. I set a goal weight. Reach it after a world of pain and denial and all of the struggles. And then spot a roll of fat that’s still there and decide that number needs to be lower. So I decide that that number on the Scale needs to go down. At all cost.
Scale and I have been through a lot, been together a long time and as such our relationship has grown to that level where we’re so comfortable with each other that we always speak true, even when it hurts.

I cuss at Scale a lot. Yell at it sometimes. And sometimes I just stand on it a while – with a tear dripping down onto the little screen that shows me a number I don’t really want to see.Our relationship has become a routine. A given. A standard in both our lives that we’ve committed to and gotten used to.

I get up. I stand on Scale. We both sigh in resignation and remember better days. Like that time when I was 15, my metabolism hadn’t fucked me up yet, I was still lacking any sort of curves AND was playing a toplevel sport 5 times a week.
So Scale got to tell me a banging number every morning. 55-ish kilo’s. We never fought. We were just happy together. Possibly took that for granted a little. Good times.
And some days we just hope for better futures. Think about a time where we both get our shit in order. Turn things around. Go back to that once-coveted-weight and effortlessly skinny body. But we never really change at all. Such is our relationship.

Sometimes I’m sick of Scale. Sometimes I can’t take the truth he forces down my throat. Sometimes I just can’t stand it all and decide I want something new. Need something new. Need some change. So I go for something different.

Me and Diet have a long history as well. We’ve been on again off again for as long as I remember after that one time Scale and I hit a rough spot. Quitting my sport at around 17 – getting slapped with the puberty stick and now-not-so-proud owner of a metabolism who suddenly thinks a glass of water should add 2kg also meant that we couldn’t talk as easily anymore, Scale and I. Instead of comrades – he’d be the one bringing me down every morning by telling me about the numbers going up. I hated him for it, even though I realized I was partly at fault. But he’d never give me the reassurance I needed. Instead he’d just tell me that truth and threw numbers at me that I hated.

So I fled into the arms of Diet.
Diet and I would always be madly in love the first couple of weeks or so. We’d find each other, get super enthused about our possibilities. Endlessly planned and plotted the ways in which we’d change each others lives and make them better. God, we’d have such plans. And every morning Scale would tell me exactly what I was feeling – Diet was changing my life. Rapidly. Drastically. And that number would go down down down. I loved every moment of it. But it never lasted all too long.

Because Diet and me? That was always that crash-and-burn type of thing. An instant flare, quick change, instant results.
Our New Relationship Energy (NRE) meant everything. Every morning I’d step on Scale and be SO excited to see what me and Diet had achieved together. And Scale, even though he’d do it grudgingly, would show that I was right. That Diet and me were great together.

He’d never say out loud that what Diet and me had was toxic. He never said that we were bad for each other. He never pointed out how those fiery beginnings inevitably sidled down into a standstill and he never said ‘I told you so’ when I eventually had to realize that Diet and me would never be compatible for the long run. I’d always come back to Scale. Maybe a couple KGs lighter, maybe a lot. Hell – he still tells me every morning that I’m still 18kg down from that period-that-shan’t-be-named. But he’d stay silent about the simple fact that it’s never really been that number that mattered. I’d never just be able to be content with what it said.

I know I should be happy with what Scale and I have. And truthfully, deep down, I know that that ‘truth’ he tells me? That ‘number’ he shares? Isn’t everything there is to us. I know I shouldn’t just hear what he says on that little screen, but that I should dig deeper. Look at what he isn’t immediately telling me, but always feels. The much healthier fat percentages. The better muscle numbers. The increased hydration and better bone density. I take all of those words for granted when all I hear is that number that I don’t wanna hear.

And then flee back to Diet when it doesn’t suit me. Because that NRE is addictive. And what if this time it sticks? What if we do make it work? What if I can make Scale eat his stupid number and become what I want to be? Maybe it’s Scale that’s holding me back.

I’m pretty damn sure that this love-hate triangle I’m in with Scale and Diet, is and will always be the epitome of my toxic relations. And the only reason it exists, the only reason that it has lasted this long is because it is founded on that one thing I can’t really get the hang of: self-love. Which means that, because my foundation isn’t solid, this is logically followed by the inevitable: nothing I build will ever last. After all: you can’t find the love you want, if you don’t think you deserve it.

So I’ll probably end up being with Scale all the time, even though we don’t really make each other happy anymore. And I’ll probably always end up crashing into the arms of Diet…
At least until I learn (and I mean, really really learn) that in the end the numbers don’t matter and it’s always myself that I have to fall back on. Even if I tend to forget.