I picked up our new "super accurate" Weight Watchers scales last night and Waif had her weigh-in this morning before breakfast which is when she should be her lightest, and in only a light nightdress (whereas at the Maudsley she wears her heavy uniform).
My husband stood on the scales last night and was shocked to find he was 13 st 7lbs. He is 6ft 4 so 189lb gives him a BMI of 23 which is in the middle of the healthy range. Nonetheless, he is determined to lose weight now.
I stood on them this morning and found that I weighed in at more than I had ever expected! I went upstairs to our old (Balance) scales on which I was then 5lb lighter.....hmmmm......I have had the bathroom scales a long time and always found they correlated with the gym scales pretty well.....I was already doubting the accuracy of the new "super precise" within 100g read - out on the new ones.
Ho hum, anyway Waif stepped aboard and the readout was 6st 7 lb. We couldn't at that moment find a way to make it read in kg so didn't really know what that meant. I have now discovered it is 91lb which is 41.3kg. I would be surprised and pleased if this were not an overly high reading. Bearing in mind that Waif was 41.0kg last Thursday afternoon in full clothes (?1.5kg) and straight after drinking 500ml of smoothie and eating two chocolate bars.
I guess it's not important as it is only the trend that counts but I want to do some research on the accuracy of those scales because leading Waif to believe she weighs more than she does could be counter productive as we near her full weight goal.... Could Weight Watchers make their scales weigh heavy to encourage people to join up? Is that a very cynical thought?
Our weekly weigh in will be Mondays henceforth. I am aiming for Waif to weigh 42.8kg next Monday. If she does, then I will celebrate :-)
Waif has a lot of incentives to get to a healthy weight - a French exchange trip to Paris and the Loire in July, a ski-ing holiday in December and the need to be 2 years recovered to go to boarding school for the sixth form. She has continued to eat well - at least as far as aa I know - I only witnessed breakfast and late night snack yesterday but Waif had earlier allowed me to put a little mayonnaise in her lunchtime cheese and tomato sandwich and hungrily ate her morning fishfingers. Actually Older Daughter took Waif to Pizza Express for supper. When they returned, OD came to tell me that Waif had had a tomato salad as starter and half a vegetable lasagne for main course. I then found Waif and said she needed pudding (sponge and ice cream) and she tried to argue that she had had a very big starter so didn't need pudding. I told her that tomatoes have next to no calories and that she HAD to have pudding. She did :-) but had I not been home, I have no doubt she would not have. Independence is still a way away.
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...so are you saying that Waif's whole family are normal-to-low weight, and actively trying to be thinner?
ReplyDelete@ watcher: well, the psych said "I am in a room full of thin people" when she met us all but I had never before thought of us as "skinny", just "slim and trim". Yes, we are all at the lower end of the healthy weight range, and always have been but without ever consciously dieting. Now H and I have both put on weight (due no doubt to the extra puddings, to the eating even when not hungry and to the enforced mealtimes) we both feel a little uncomfortable. And yes, H is trying to lose weight (he went for a 40 mile bike ride on Sunday and skipped breakfast and lunch) and if I am honest then I would say that I too would like to lose 2 or 3 kg before my two June triathlons as my run times have seriously deteriorated and I don't fit any of my Summer dresses any more. BUT this is small beer compared with Waif's recovery and is NOT my top priority...I know I will regain my "normal" (low) weight when I start eating normally again rather than trying to set an example. After all Waif needs LOADS more calories than we do as she needs to gain. For now, all I care about is Waif.
ReplyDeleteHmmm..more worryingly, H reckons Waif looks okay now (at 82% of her recommended weight so still within the anorexic range). So I suspect we all have a distorted idea of what "thin" or "fat" means. I will just go on the charts and intend Waif to get to 95 or 100% and never ever again to slip below 90% as she is clearly vulnerable to ED.
on the accuracy of scales you could try:
ReplyDelete- take them with you to the Maudsley and calibrate them
- weigh yourself every 20 mins for a couple of hours (moving the scales a little each time) and see if you get the same reading
- perhaps find some object in your house that is approx waif's weight. Then you can a) weight it every so often to see if you get the same result and b) weigh it somewhere else. Do they still have giant scales in Boots?
............wow. it is claimed eating disordered traits have a potentially genetic basis. whilst your husband doesn't necessarily have an eating disorder per se, it's most worrisome that he's projecting attitudes that could undermine waif's recovery. one of the hardest parts of recovery is having to modify your own belief systems and mentalities, so to have someone confirming the very sentiments that sustained your ED is..... counterproductive, to say the least.
ReplyDeleteHi there,
ReplyDeleteI've been reading your blog for a while now and just wanted to say that I hope everything is going ok. I had anorexia two years ago when I was 14 and having my parents support me was a really important part of my recovery. I think you're doing a really good job with Waif and I'm glad you're getting support, but it's really important that you continue to watch what Waif eat's really closely. If the new scales are not accurate and Waif thinks she weighs more than she does, it might trigger her in to wanting to lose weight, when she might actually be a lot lighter.
I hope things improve for you all.
:)
P.S I listened to a podcast by a young woman talking about anorexia (she has published a book called Fighting Anorexia) and I thought it might be helpful for you to listen to as she gives the listener a really depthful acount of what it's like to suffer from the illness and she answers questions that the audience asks her. Here is the link: http://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/the-sydney-institute-podcast/id205392545
ReplyDeleteIt's number 12 on the list (titled Lucy Howard-Taylor)I'm not sure if you have itunes? But you can download the podcast for free. Hope this helps!
:)