For many of you, this is back-to-school time. You move back into a routine of getting the kids out the door and onto the bus in the mornings. Your schedules shift to accommodate after-school pickups and activities. That happens a little bit with me too because of Michael, but for the most part it’s not a big change. This time of year for me means annual health check-ups. In the last three weeks, I have been probed by my gynecologist, had two vials of blood taken from arm, and consulted with my general practitioner about the results of that blood work and preventive screenings that I need to consider for my current age.

I dread this time of year just as much as every kid going back to school.

I go to these annual check-ups expecting to hear the worst like abnormal cells, crazy glucose levels, and high cholesterol. High blood pressure is now something I get to the add to the list of hereditary conditions along with diabetes and brain disorders. Every visit, I wonder if this the year that the doctors decide to add a new medication that I must then adjust my life around. Aging is a glorious yet, medically lucrative, process. It’s great. I highly recommend it. This year, all of my tests came back looking good and healthy. My blood pressure was excellent and almost perfect. My cholesterol levels are holding at a moderately okay level. Overall, both doctors were pleased with how I am doing and neither one of them said anything about my weight. In fact, when I brought up the subject with my primary care physician, she brushed it off and said “You’ve been on vacation. It’s probably all water weight.”

WHY AM I THE THE ONLY ONE CONCERNED ABOUT WHAT THE NUMBER ON THE SCALE SAYS?!!?

In the last three months I have not been as physically active as I was this time last year. I just wrote that sentence and started to write about the things I am doing, when it struck me that I am as physically active as I was this time last year. What the actually fuck, Cindy!?!?! I get almost 12,000 steps a day. I do a twenty to thirty minute strength training class Monday through Friday and I get on my yoga mat almost every day for about an hour. I stand half the day at work and often have dance parties at my desk. I’m eating ridiculously healthy meals and less of it because I set a timer for twenty minutes and force myself to slow down and chew my food. I am a moderately healthy individual.

So why am I so obsessed with what the scale says?!?!

I have no memory of a time in my life where I wasn’t thinking about my size.