The Number Will Never Be Low Enough...

The number will never be low enough, i know that's probably not what you want to hear because eating disorders convince us that everything will feel better once we reach a certain number. A lower number, the "right" number, the number that will finally make us feel happy, confident and in control so we chase it. We tell ourselves that when we get there, things will be different. We'll stop worrying, stop comparing and finally feel enough but what happens when you reach the number? Another one appears and then another and another because eating disorders don't have finish lines.

The number changes and the eating disorder still wants more and that's the trap. You're chasing something that was never designed to make you feel satisfied.

For a long time, i believed the problem was the number itself. I thought if i could just get it lower, i'd finally feel better but eating disorders have a way of making every achievement feel temporary. You step on the scale hoping to feel relief, validation but instead you're already thinking about the next goal. The next number, the next reason why you're still not good enough. The scale was never measuring what you were actually looking for because what most people are really searching for isn't a number, it's confidence, happiness or freedom and none of those things can be measured by a scale. A scale can tell your weight but it can't tell your worth. It can't tell you how much of your life you're missing whilst you're busy chasing a smaller number.

The saddest part is that the scale often ends up deciding far more than just your mood, it decides whether you think you've had a good day or a bad day. Whether you feel proud of yourself or disappointed in yourself. Whether you believe you've made progress or failed, all because of a number. A number that doesn't know your story and doesn't know how hard you're fighting. This number doesn't know how exhausted you are from carrying an eating disorder every single day. Yet somehow, we hand it the power to decide how we feel about ourselves and that's a dangerous thing to do because the scale doesn't celebrate the meal you managed to finish. It doesn't the fear food you challenged and it doesn't care that you went out for a coffee with your friend instead of isolating yourself. It doesn't see the courage it took to choose recovery today because it only gives you a number.

If you're waiting for that number to finally tell you you're enough, i'm sorry you'll be waiting forever because no number has the power to do that. You were already enough before you stepped on the scale.

If you really think about it, what are you hoping the scale will give you? Peace? Confidence? Happiness? Freedom? The ability to finally stop thinking about food and your body? Those things are the things eating disorders promise, they convince you that they're waiting on the other side of a smaller number but if that were true, wouldn't you already have found them by now? How many times has the number changed? Yet the fear stayed and the feeling of not being enough stayed. The truth is, the scale was never the thing holding those answers. You weren't searching for a smaller body, you were searching for a life that felt bigger than calories, body checking and numbers. That's the heartbreaking part, so many people spend years chasing a number when what they really want is freedom. A number can't give you freedom but recovery can.

The problem with chasing a number is that it slowly becomes the centre of your world. A good number can make you feel like you've earned happiness and a bad number can ruin your entire day. Before you know it, your mood, your confidence and your self worth are all being controlled by something that was never designed to carry that kind of power. That's not living, that's surviving at the mercy of a scale.

I think that's hat scares me about eating disorders, not the number itself but how much they convince us to sacrifice for it. The truth is, the scale doesn't care how much you've given up to make it happy. It simply gives you a number and waits for you to decide what it means and for far too long, i let that number mean everything.

So if you're waiting for the scale to finally tell you you're enough, i need you to know that it won't not because you're not enough but because a number was never designed to answer a question like that. A scale can measure your weight, it can't measure your worth. One day you'll realise that the number wasn't the thing you wanted after all, what you wanted was freedom. When you look back on your life you won't remember every number you saw on the scale. Don't let a number become the most important thing about your life that is worth so much more than that.

With Love, Niomi 🤎