The first Sunday in March, I left home for the trail that wanders through our suburban neighborhood and took myself on my longest walk/run yet—both the longest overall workout (time and distance) and total minutes of running.

It was more running in one day than I’ve done in maybe 10 years.

And then that Monday I had a medication check with my general provider—and I found out I weigh more right now than I have in 10 years.

I’m not going to lie: it shook me. I stopped weighing myself at home a few years ago, though I’ve always looked and taken note when I’ve climbed on the scale during doctors’ appointments.

As long as that number fell within a general range, I decided, there were other things that needed more of my care and attention. Because thing is, fixating on that one number had not gotten me anywhere I liked being. I had been “skinny” and depressed, fat and happy, middling and anxious, and every combination in between.

Each month of my training, I’ve stretched my capacity a little farther. It’s been gratifying. But I also suspected that as I carried my body around on this physical journey—or would it carry me?—I’d also be carried along on a mental and emotional trip.

I’ve known women who’ve made peace with their bodies by focusing on what it does for them. I’ve tried that sort of thinking, but it felt like a trap. I could thank my legs for their strength and my back for its support, but then anxiety would grab hold. Well, what would I thank my body for as I aged or when I got injured or sick? What would I say to my body as it lost capacity?

Some of my other tendencies—productivity traps, anyone?—hijacked the approach.

Body neutrality helped a little. I tried statements of fact to soften my approach. I am a human and I have human thighs. I may not ever love my thighs, but I have thighs. Fact.

It helped, don’t know why.

When I let go of weight as a number that needed to be directly addressed, I had more space for the rest of the work I was doing. Therapy, sobriety, mindfulness, my relationships, the self-talk that happens in my head, writing, my hobbies, my job, managing my household, my projects! like this half-marathon business!—all of it had a little more breathing room.

I know how I gained the weight. I was noticing changes in my appearance and how I felt in my clothes.

The totality of it just… snuck up.

Studies show that those closest to us have a harder time noticing changes in us because they see us every day. They know us too well, in a way: they tick the seconds by alongside us. It’s actually easier for people you only see once in a while to play spot-the-difference.

I think the same must apply to ourselves! That weight check arrived like the feeling you might get when you see a friend after a few months, and it’s easier to see the weight they’ve gained, or the deepening of the wrinkles, or the hair that’s grown or been cut or has grayed.

It was like the consequences of a few months of my life arrived, all at once. There they were, stark reality on a tiny digital screen before me.

I’m so relieved to say that although I felt shaken for a few hours, I was not shaken. I remained the same loving person I was before I saw that number. There was a core me that was not dashed against the rocks when the wave arrived.

I talked about the experience in a sober mom meeting that week. Some of those friends knew I was “in training” for the Halfsy.

“Muscle weighs more than fat!!” one typed in the chat as I spoke, trying to remind me that weight was not the only factor that could be changing for me.

“Right, right, that’s true,” I said back with a smile. What I didn’t say was, “Ah, yes, my muscly runner’s chin is coming in nicely!”

That appointment was about three weeks ago. It’s been a doozy of a month, for many reasons, but my “training” has definitely entered a new phase. For the first three months, my approach was “slow and steady.” I tried new things and stayed open, and each week or month I sent the gear up a notch. I focused on time and frequency as my measures.

A little more, and a little more often.

It worked, it was great. It was easy, and I was proud that I wasn’t dragging myself along or expending all my willpower on this one project, “no matter what.”

I’ve been there before. It has serious limits, and costs, and won’t get the big stuff done. Well it will, but it spits you out on the other side. I don’t want to just get through. I don’t want to be a shell of some former self. I want to shed the shell and grow into the next one!

I’m yelling because this feels important. I’m not yelling at you; I’m yelling for me.

I took the call when I saw those digits on the screen. I decided, within a few stormy hours, that this was an invitation to turn my attention somewhere new. I’m adding new pieces into my training.

But it’s still fundamentals. Slow and steady. I’m buying myself more fresh veggies and more frozen fruits. I’m tracking my water intake, my weight, and my steps daily. This is very new for me, but this could be useful data. The water and steps I have the power to change. And I get a fresh chance at them every day, any moment.

And the weight? Like most of my training, I’m approaching it like an experiment, with the long view in mind. “Let’s see what happens,” I’m telling myself. I track it daily so that I can look for patterns across the weeks and months.

And I’m allowed to change my mind. This is something I’m having to accept and embrace and laugh through. (Because what else can I do?) I thought it was radical and powerful to stop weighing myself, and it was! And now I need to try something new.

My husband told me once about a “smart” water bottle that would track your water intake for you, send you dynamic reminders or nudges, or tell you what you should be doing…

“We have the tech to do that already! It’s called thirst!” I snapped.

I rolled my eyes. I held that example up as a totem for all the ways that tech takes us farther from our bodies. How can we listen to our bodies if we’re busy listening for notifications from an app? I don’t need more nudges! I need to figure out how the hell to hear the ones I already have.

Okay. That Caitie wasn’t wrong. But it’s not all-or-nothing. I have let myself be a little more tethered to my phone these last three weeks. I had never opened the “health” app before now, but I’m in there often, checking my step count. I’m even doing that obnoxious thing where I sometimes think to myself, “Oh no! I left my phone behind. My step count is going to be wrong!”

Here’s what I’ve always known: the step count doesn’t have to be accurate for the steps to count. Doesn’t mean I ought to reject the notion of a step count wholesale, or lock my phone in a box with the scale and send them to the bottom of the sea.

I also don’t have to banish myself to the darkness because I got fatter while training for a half-marathon. Or because I refused to weigh myself for two years. Or because I now weigh myself daily.

I’ve got enough evidence to know that none of those facts can tell a true story on its own. It’s not possible.

Aaaand… I’m allowed to change my mind.

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