Like Scales Falling from the Eyes
My inner sight has always been pretty good. I am very self aware, probably too much sometimes, but I see it as keeping guard over my behaviours.
As our behaviour can affect others, it makes sense to check it. Most people have a good sense of what is right and what is wrong. Some people have very skewed ideas about it, but they are not my concern. I cannot worry about things that cannot be changed. If they are so far entrenched, leave it be. Waste not thy precious energy. Arguing on the internet with idiots is like nailing jelly to a wall. Ultimately pointless and utterly draining.
I am very lucky in that my circle of people is made up of like minded, honourable, kind and decent humans. Caring, sensible (mostly!) and I know without a doubt that all of them would stop and help someone in need.
Social Media can be such a force for good, and it can also help to throw light on potentially damaging behaviours. I don’t mean asshats like Andrew Tate or the other denizens of Dirtbag City, but the small things; comments in passing or stories can suddenly pinpoint a behaviour I didn’t realise I had acquired.
This week it was, quite literally, scales. Bathroom scales to be precise.
I have always hated scales. They are used by people to measure you, and then as a justification tell you that your body is wrong and that you need to change it. So far, so health service.
BUT they can also be a tool of self recrimination or, fail that, a mood hoover.
Case in point; this morning I weighed myself. I have been eating low carb now since mid April. I can count the days upon which I have had sugar. My birthday, because I had chocolate, and last Saturday where I choked on something and couldn’t breathe. It scared me, and a sugary something helped stop me shaking.
One sugary something, and that.
I didn’t have one cookie and then eat the packet. I ate one, and them went along with my day. It didn’t stop my brain reminding me that I had a tin of shortbread on the shelf, I had to fight that and fight it hard, but I didn’t go and get it, I just purposefully ignore it.
Anyway. Weighed in today and I had put on a kilo. (2.2 pounds.)
As I stepped off, and wandered away, it dawned on me that my mood had dropped quite dramatically. I felt a bit defeated, and peeved.
2.2 pounds, that’s all it was. You can gain that overnight just by water retention. It’s nothing, nada, non è importante.
And there fell the scales. My self worth had started to be linked to something as fluid and changeable as lace edged clouds. I’d worked hard! I’d been ‘good’! Where was my….reward…oh.
“That’s quite enough of that.” I said out loud.
My weight is only important to chairs, lifts and a certain part of the medical profession who still think BMI is valid. It’s not important in how I live my life, my fat is not in the way of my own body, and it doesn’t upset me when I look in the mirror.
I am made of softness and kindness, my comfortable arms can still reach around people to hug them and pull them into an embrace when they are sad. Yes, I have various ridiculous aches, pains and whatnots, and all of them are not my fault.
My weight is not my fault. And even if it were? It doesn’t make me any of the usual unkind adjectives applied to fat people.
But if I was those things? It is truly none of anybody else’s business, unless it hurt someone.
The bathroom scales will now be relegated back to a thing for weighing suitcases. I did not buy them, I did not want them. I will not use them.
Ironically this comes at a time when the NHS has told me to go on a free Don’t Get Diabetes program, and they are sending me some scales.
I shall put a sticker on them of the weight I was this morning, and that shall be my forevermore weight. The same way that my forevermore age is 42.
In the spirit of having the scales fall from my eyes (not literally, that would be weird) here is a very nice recipe for carrot tarator. Carrots being allegedly good for the eyes. (Not so much, but the story behind the myth is wonderful.)
Houmous with Roasted Carrots
1 pound carrots, chopped into 1-inch chunks
2 tbs sesame seeds
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
1 400g tin cooked chickpeas, drained but liquid reserved
1/4 cup tahini
Juice of half a lemon
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 tsp garlic salt (I didn’t have any fresh in)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
Coat the carrots with 2 tbs of the olive oil, and toss with sesame seeds.
Roast in a hot oven (170C fan) for a good half hour, 45 minutes, until soft.
When cooled, place into the bowl of a food processor.
Add everything else, and blitz.
Taste, then adjust all the seasonings and flavours. Mine needed more salt, and more lemon, as the carrots were very sweet. And I added more tahini because I love it. Adjust it to how you like it.
It’s your dinner.
It should keep in the fridge for about 3-4 days.