I threw my scale away two years ago. It was the most liberating moment of my life.

I was a girl who has struggled with weight since I was young, and the scale became my authority. It was my disciplinarian; my rewarder, my punisher. It dictated how I felt, how I looked, how I acted. It allowed me to have a good day or a bad day. It helped me feel really good about myself, yet contrarily, very bad about myself.

My hatred towards the scale runs deep, and it’s easy to trace back to the root seeding that blossomed this well developed scale-phobia within me.

My mom was a model. Lovely, tall, lean. She gave it up because my dad didn’t like other men looking at her. I think she always felt she missed an opportunity, so there was a bit of projection towards me; that I should be following her path and become a model myself.

That path changed when hormones kicked in and I gained weight. A lot of it. I was always tall, eventually reaching  5’10, so the weight was more or less evenly distributed, but it was no secret, I was heavy.

My dad struggled with his weight as well, so I understood from an early age, how diets (and the agony that accompanied them) worked. I also understood how shameful, and unacceptable, being “fat” was in our house.

When I was 12, my weight was creeping, and my parents decided to put me on my first diet; Herbalife. Multiple vitamins, Aloe Vera gel, and restricted calories. It’s no shock that didn’t go well. At 12, I had no maturity, diligence or taste pallet to tolerate it. I instead, gained more weight.

At 13, I was introduced to an unspoken horror at the doctors office; the Mechanical Physicians Scale. I had a terrible cold so my mom forced me to the doctor. And I knew from past visits, I would be weighed. I learned early to hate that tall, terrorizing inanimate object that clicked clicked clicked towards your fate until that little black slider rested on that final, dreadful number.

Wearing the lightest clothes I could find and making sure to kick off my belt, shoes and even barrette, I stepped painfully aboard the awful metal devil. I watched, with my mom holding her breath behind me, as the nurse tapped the plastic tracker to the final weight of 150 pounds. My mom gasped, and proclaimed “You weigh more than me!” I was humiliated and stepped off wiping away tears that mom didn’t seem to notice.

It sounds just dreadful to write, and it was, but that scale, the number on that scale, defined me. I was now, according to my mom, officially fat. And that recognition triggered fear in her. She felt panic that I was on the road to obesity, and she felt it was her place, to save me.

She decided to get serious about getting me on a diet. She made me take “before” pictures in my underwear and bra,  (to compare to the “after” photos we would take when I was so skinny and pretty!) She  enrolled me in Jenny Craig. I was 14, and this was my new lot in life.

Not shockingly, Jenny Craig didn’t work. So other diets came and went. All equally dreadful. And the scale, was my mortal enemy. She weighed me often, and when I started refusing, resorted to doctors’ visits to track me. I swear, she took me to the doctor the moment I sniffled.

Those doctor visits were the bane of my existence. She always stood behind me, watching with her breath held as we watched the final number burn our eyes. “Tsk, tsk, tsk”, “Oh my god” and sometimes even just a silent air suck broke the silence. But whatever the response, it shamed, and embarrassed me deeply.

What she didn’t understand was the more she pushed me to diet, the more it drove me to eat. I would sneak food, steal food, hoard food…I don’t know if it was rebellion, or comfort, but putting food in my mouth, was all that I knew to do. It seemed to be the only thing I was good at. So I kept doing it.

My nickname from my dad was “Thunder Thighs” and “Sugar Plump Fairy”. My mom would challenge me every time she saw me eat something she felt was fattening. “Yes that tastes good now Krissy, but you may as well just smear it on your thighs because that is where it will end up”. It was dreadful. And it ruined me.

Understandably, I developed many personal and mental issues with body confidence during this time of my life.  My weight made me feel terrible about myself. I felt ugly, worthless, unlovable if I was fat, accepted only if I was skinny. I hated my body. I hated myself.

I was desperate to get my mom off my back, so in spite of (or in rebellion to) her incessant nagging,  I began trying to tackle things on my own. I don’t know what eating disorder I developed; it seemed to be a unique combination of many. I counted calories and wrote my food intake down obsessively in journals. I wrote ideal eating plans, then got mad at myself when I couldn’t follow them. Throwing up didn’t work for me, but laxatives did. I also discovered diet pill aids, and would starve myself for a few days, then binge it all back.

When pills weren’t enough, I graduated to more dangerous tactics; amphetamines; well that sure did the trick. I lost a lot of weight. I got a lot of compliments. My mom put me back in the modeling circuit, and was so excited and proud and supportive. For the first time, I felt accepted by her and so I maniacally kept up my bizarre cycle of drugs, starving, binging, and hating myself for as long as I could ride it out.

Without going in to deeper detail, trust me when I state this lifestyle didn’t last. After a couple of years, the drug use stopped, and sure as shit the weight came back.

When I graduated high school, my best friend and I dreamed of moving far away, and starting our lives all over. Her dad lived in Seattle, and we began planning our move.

My mom and dad didn’t want me to go offered one last plea. They would pay for my apartment, junior college fees, car and lifestyle (so I didn’t have to work much), IF I would go back on Jenny Craig and give modeling ONE more try.

I was trapped; they knew I would take the bait, and I stayed. I went back on Jenny Craig (again). I moved in to my apartment and attended Junior college. I did lose a little weight, and took some more modeling pictures that my mom proudly shared with everyone.

I couldn’t keep up the Jenny Craig, but there was a little shift this time. I was now on my own. I began buying my own food. I discovered I liked cooking. I was now living my own life, not my moms and I was able to determine that I did need to, and also wanted to, lose weight, but under my terms.

I coincidentally founded two passions of mine; animal rights and writing. It was during this time, I did some solid research and decided vegetarianism was right for me. The weight melted off. I felt better, I began running. I felt even better. I drank fresh pressed juices, meditated. I took long walks alone on the beach to think, focus, pray.

I lost all my extra weight. I felt better than I had in a long time. This was finally working. Without my mom. With me driving it. That was empowering, and it stuck. I told my mom I was done trying to model, she finally let it go.

Life moved on – well. I met the love of my life who loved me unconditionally and would never know if I gained or lost ten pounds, or care even if I did. We had two kids, I found a career I loved. I pursued running, and accomplished some fantastic physical goals.

Weight awareness, lacking total body confidence was always there, but I was in a much better place, mentally and physically. For a while.  I think those who wrestle with weight and struggle with eating disorders of any kind, understand it’s a life long battle. So even at this better lot in my life, the scale, and gaining weight, still triggered my anxiety.

I found a fun and social work out group, led by a trainer and attended by women who became my good friends. But to my dismay, each week, we had to weigh in on Mondays. Our trainer stood behind us to track our progress and noted the numbers. Our weight was charted and challenged as the group progressed.

I hated it. And soon, some of my distant eating habits began popping back up. I stopped eating heavy Saturday the weekend before our Monday weigh in. I would barely eat anything Sunday and make sure I had a nice healthy poop (help of Senna) before getting on the scale Monday. Then, the night I would get weighed was my free for all. I had a whole 6 days until the next weigh in, so I binged.

I pursued running long distance, so after a while dropped the group, continuing to monitor my weight at home. I still hated the scale, and I continued to practice all the tricks I could, to make those scale numbers be as light as they could be each week.

I was weighing  myself one morning, and my weight was higher than I hoped it would be. I stepped off, devastated and began to cry. I looked up in the mirror and took stock of myself; naked, scared, shamed -because of that fucking number that fucking scale screaming at me.

I closed my eyes for a minute, said a quick prayer as simple as “God help me with this” and it was that moment, something overcame me. I wrapped a robe around myself, picked up that scale, and ran downstairs to throw that piece of shit thing in the trash. I even dumped a bag of trash on top of it. I slammed the lid, committing to never, ever weighing myself again.

It’s been two years. And I haven’t. I discovered when I take a trip to the doctors, I politely decline the weigh in. They don’t challenge me. I have found I have a few pairs of pants that are my new scale. Sometimes they feel a little tight, I figure I am up a little. Sometimes they feel a little loose, I figure I am down a little.

But I will tell you, the last two years without a scale has been heavenly. Freeing.

I have learned to trust an inner guide in my body – to gauge what I can and can’t eat. I eat healthy, but I also indulge. My psyche has learned to figure out when I have been indulging a little bit too much (it’s Xmas time right now, this is one of those times) and how to balance it out with a steady stream of healthy eating.

I have no idea what I weigh, nor do I care. I think, after 43 years, I can finally, honestly say I love my body, and I have let go of my issues with food. I have some flab, I have some stretch marks. I also have a husband who loves me, friends who support me and health that fuels me through healthy days of parenting, working, endurance sports and a life I love.

I am free from the mental games the scale played with me, I am free from the debilitating obsessiveness that came with analyzing my food. I am free to play, eat good food, eat healthy food, and live my life well.

I know I have made my mom sound awful throughout this write up. She is not awful. She is a compassionate, giving and kind mother and grandmother. She checks in with me nearly every day, and showers me with love, adoration and compliments about what an amazing woman I am. She cherishes me, and I her. The weight thing, I discovered, was her own struggle as much as it was mine, and she had her own battles, that in her own weird way, she was trying to shelter me from. I learned to be very careful with my own daughters and never bring up weight, or scales. It’s simply health and energy and how we feel, that is our house focus. I forgive my mom and my dad for the pain they caused me, as I know it was not meant to hurt me. It was meant to help me, and they simply lacked the proper tools and resources, to help me the right way.

Many of my writings end with me understanding God is a big God. Things happen how they are supposed to and for a reason. Many of those reasons  I have yet to figure out, but every single moment of my life led me precisely to where, and who, I am today. It led me to my husband, my solid relationship with my mom and dad, my beautiful girls. So every single step I would redo again for assurance I’d end up right here.

Somewhere around 145 pounds. In my scale-free world.