Doctor's orders

197 pounds

My weight was up again this morning, and since I happened to be going to the doctor's office for something else, I decided to ask about the fact that I've gained six pounds in the past few weeks.

I was REALLY worried about bringing the issue up in the first place. My fear was that once I opened that door, my doctor would walk right through it and tell me that I needed to lose weight. After all, my BMI is in the obese range, and I've always figured a medical professional would be all over me if the subject ever came up. To be honest, it's something I've been waiting for a long time—for one of my doctors to look at my weight and say, "Wow, you really need to do something about this."

So I could not have been more surprised when my doctor's response was completely laid back.

"It's probably water weight," he said. "You don't need to worry about it."

I was completely shocked. I thought for sure he would look at the number on my chart and ship me off to fat camp.

"But six pounds in three weeks?" I said. "Isn't that something to worry about?"

Yet again, he didn't seem worried. He pulled up my records on his computer and reminded me that I had just had a slew of tests run in January, and that I was in perfect health. He assured me that I had nothing to worry about.

"You exercise, right?" he asked, and when I told him that we try to exercise for at least an hour a day, he said, "Wow, that's great."

The truth is that I had been worrying a good deal about my recent weight gain, but after hearing the doctor reassure me that it was nothing to fret over, I remembered that I'm the one who always says we should be more concerned about our health than the numbers on the scale.

I guess over the past few weeks I've forgotten that. I've been so obsessed with those numbers that I forgot how little they really mean. So I will try my best to stop obsessing, but I'm not going to make any promises that I'm not sure I can keep.