The Number

I'm stuck on a number. Well, two numbers.
One is the weight on my scale. The other is my BMI.

The first is just frozen and nothing I do (good or bad) seems to budge it. I just can't seem to drop those last five pounds. The second is in the "normal" range, but still hovering close to the overweight category.

I don't tell everyone what my actual weight is. I don't tell because I really believe that the number isn't important and that we should all focus more on how we feel, how far we've come and how healthy we are. I also don't tell because I don't want you to do the math and figure out how much I did weigh before all this. It still embarrasses me.

But when I see that BMI number, a byproduct of my actual weight, of course, it irritates me.

When I do tell people how much I weigh, they say something like this:

"No way! You look closer to (a number 10 or 15 pounds lighter than I actually am)." Or, "Really? You don't look like you weigh that much."

Both of these comments are meant as compliments. And I happily take them as such. But my number bothers me because it still sounds big. And it still puts me squarely in the "almost overweight" BMI camp.

It sounds ridiculous, or even conceited perhaps, to want more than what I have. The girl inside me that worked so hard to get in a size 6, and sometimes a 4, screams at this whiner. "You bitch! This isn't good enough now?"

But the old big girl sees the big number on the scale and forgets all about the size of the jeans, the miles traveled and the pounds lost. She only sees the flab round the middle and the saddlebags and the arm flaps and yells back. "You only THINK you're thin. You'll NEVER be thin. Not actual skinny. The rolls are still there and everyone can see them."

After 95 pounds, I didn't think five more would be such a big deal. Or that it would mess with my head this much.

Of course I know it's just a number. That I've done a good job and that I'm perfectly OK just where I am. I'm not saying this to fish for compliments or support. I'm just being honest because if I feel like this about my number, I know some of you also worry about your number. It's normal, I guess.

Irritating. Maybe even irrational. But normal.