From skwigg's journal:
If I catch myself body-checking at all, I stop. I used to have all these little disordered quirks for checking my size or analyzing my reflection. I no longer do that. I operate under the assumption that I'm fine regardless. I don't really notice my clothes anymore because I only own ones that fit and the fit doesn't change very much. I used to find obsessive body-checking far more stressful than weighing myself, which is why I continued weighing myself for so long. The scale is actually less invasive to me than using tight clothes as a guide, which some suggest but I find horrible.
If clothes are feeling tighter, it's only ever a matter of looking at my habits to see if I'm enjoying them and being consistent, or if I'm eating when not hungry, snacking more, skipping meals, or eating past satisfaction. If things are getting weird, a few days of eating more normally un-weirds them very effectively. Nothing to worry about.
For me, body checking was compulsive and almost subconscious. I did it frequently without being fully aware that I was doing it. It was almost like nail biting or something like that. If I found myself stressed, nervous, anxious, excited, or bored, you can bet I’d be doing it. The “Am I ok? Let’s check.” program would just run without me ever making a conscious decision. So half the battle was just noticing that I was doing it.
Once I had the ability to question painful thoughts, the idea that staring my bellybutton was going to determine *anything* seemed like total lunacy. Yet, I had built this whole reality around “If I weigh this, then ____ (dreams come true). If my belly looks like this, then ____ (nightmare scenario). If my arms do this one thing then ____ (elation or despair).” I could look at it objectively and see that none of this was true, that I felt awful and behaved like a lunatic when I believed it, that I would be much happier and more confident if I didn’t, and that, absolutely, the opposite was just as true or more true.
But then what? None of that logic keeps you from stepping on the scale, putting your hands around your waist, or staring into the mirror when you don’t mean to. So, then it was exactly like giving up calorie counting. The thoughts and behaviors kept coming automatically. I would notice I was doing it and literally just think “no” or “stop.” This probably happened thousands of times, which I believe rewired my brain. For years, I would body check and then get very emotionally involved. Then I would body check (or think about it) and just stop as soon as I noticed I was doing it. I’d deliberately think about or do something else, breaking the old pattern over and over again. Eventually, that whole painful reality I’d built around my appearance fell apart from disuse.
The important questions are: How do I feel? How do I treat myself? Am I honoring my values? Am I staying in my own business? If a thought hurts, am I questioning it?
The mirror and the scale have none of the answers, and in fact cause me to veer wildly into bad behavior, painful storytelling, and other people’s business.