Having your cake and eating it, too: The hard-to-control mental aspect of weight gain and loss

My relationship with the bathroom scale isn't especially complicated, nor is it especially healthy.

I pay lots of attention to the scale when my weight is down. I step on it nearly every day to bask in the glow of the number I apparently believe to be some reflection of my own worth.

But during those times when I know the number is going to be above what I want it to be, I actively avoid the scale.

Right now I am in one of those phases where the scale and I are not friends. This is unfair to the scale in that the number it reports is entirely a product of my own negligence and lack of discipline, rather than anything the scale itself has done.

A few weeks ago I weighed myself and discovered I had gained quite a bit of weight over the previous nine months. And it's not the first time this has happened.

I reported a similar significant gain in June 2015. In fact, if you search for the word "weight" here, you will find I've written a lot about the subject over the years.

I never thought much about my weight until I graduated from high school, when I gained far more than the standard "Freshman 15" (try the "Freshman 40"). I ballooned up in a hurry in my early 20s once my metabolism and genetics caught up with my admittedly sub-par eating habits.

Over the years I have gained and lost different amounts of weight. In fact, I associate certain years with particularly memorable weight fluctuations.

There was The Great Gain of 2012, The Big Loss of 2013, The Sneaky Blow-Up of 2015, The Even Bigger Loss of 2016, The "How Did That Happen?" Gain of 2018-19, The "This Is The Last Time I'll Go Through This" Loss of 2022, and now I guess The "I'm Not Very Good at This Weight Maintenance Thing" Pound-Packing of 2023.

Here's what I don't get: Once I make up my mind to lose weight, it's never particularly hard. And the initial phase of maintaining a healthy weight doesn't feel that difficult, either.

But then, without even noticing it, I lose interest. Other things attract my attention and, before I know it, the weight I lost becomes the weight I found.

I have already begun losing weight (again) since that disappointing trip to the bathroom scale in October, and I don't doubt I'll get back to where I should be, health-wise.

But then what? There's a mental/emotional aspect to food that repeatedly trips me up. I'm not even sure what it is, which makes overcoming it that much more difficult. How do you master something you can't even identify?

When I'm eating healthy, I love eating healthy. When I'm not eating healthy, I love not eating healthy.

Much of it goes back to my all-or-nothing personality. If I can't be perfect, then I revert to being perfectly imperfect. I slip up a few times and decide I might as well eat whatever I want, because I'm clearly incapable of maintaining a sound diet and a reasonable weight.

I can do the physical part of weight loss. It's my brain – prone to extremes as it is – I need to get under control.

With the pounds already dropping off (again), the scale and I will very likely rekindle our friendship by this spring. But I need to start working on my mental approach now because the time is coming when I'm going to be confronted by the same old challenges.

I have yet to conquer them, but I keep trying.

I know very well that striving for perfection inevitably leads to failure, but I do it anyway.

I know something has to change in my head if I'm going to keep the rest of my body in good working condition, but I'm not quite sure what it is.

What's that old saying about being your own worst enemy?