I'm Shook

Y'all, I was feeling really positive and good when I first came back after the new year. But now...I'm shook.

The scale has not been my friend the past week or so. Logically, I realize that the three pounds I seem to have gained could be water retention. It's creeping up on that dreaded time of the month that messes with every woman's scale so it makes sense. But, it could also be all that crap I ate my last week at home finally caught up with me. That's what my head keeps telling me it is.

I was keeping fairly chill about it, though. I wasn't letting it mess with my  head too much and I was basically calm. I avoided the scale for a few days and just reminded myself that there are many reasons why the number on the scale can fluctuate. I know all those reasons. But then a good friend of mine...my childhood best friend, the only other "fat kid" in my first grade class who we bonded over our body issues and have remained friends since first grade...the friend who last close to 100lbs over the past couple of years and whose success had given me hope that I, too, could finally shed 100lbs and be healthy...well, she texted me this weekend with the confession that she had gained forty-freakin-pounds in THREE MONTHS.

We don't see each other much outside of Facebook and the occasional text for me to see the pounds creep up on her. She'd been featured in a newspaper article not too long ago about her weight loss and all the inroads she'd made into a healthier lifestyle so I thought she was still on track.  I noticed I hadn't seen any of the body-positive photos she'd been posting on Sundays when she was all dressed up for church but I thought maybe she'd finally gotten past celebrating her thinner body. But no. She was HIDING the fact that she'd gained forty-freakin'-pounds in THREE MONTHS.

When I asked her what happened...surely there had to have been something that happened, right? She'd been hit by a bus and been in a coma for three months and it caused her to gain weight. Or, she'd gotten pregnant and that was baby weight. I couldn't imagine the nonchalant answer she gave me. She just started eating unhealthy.

Which means, she lost focus. She started fudging on her healthy eating. Splurging. Treating herself. Except, she wasn't splurging. She was full on back into the same old junk over-eating nonsense she and I have struggled with our whole entire lives.

And this shook me, y'all. Because three months. It took her just a mere three months to GAIN what it took me six months to LOSE. That realization shook me to my core.

I am taking a good long hard look at what I ate over the holidays. Did I stay close enough to the track to qualify as not derailing? Did I give myself too much leeway in name of "celebrating." Did I say, "Oh, it's Christmas, it'll be okay" too often? Did, "it's just one day" turn into two full weeks and am I still stuck in that?

Cause I gotta admit. Saturday morning, before I got her texted confession, I was in full on "old Jana" grazing mode. I don't think I ate a TON Saturday but there was a little more chocolate consumption that there had been "pre-Christmas" and there was a lot of restless hunting for snacks. Fortunately, I don't keep/have a lot of "snacks" in my house but I did/do have a bag of pretzels left over from treat making. And I have a lot more chocolate available to me than I had before Christmas.

But it isn't even so much about what I did or didn't eat Saturday that concerns me. It's that restless hunt to just eat...not because I was hungry, but because I just wanted to eat. I think it was boredom but I worry that it was "old Jana" struggling to get out.

I haven't even gotten to where I wanted to go yet and I'm terrified that I'm starting to go backwards.

I hope that my friend's confession was enough of wake-up call to keep me grounded and on track. I'm hoping I can stay conscious enough about what I'm doing/eating that I won't stay at this four pounds and after mother nature's gone I'll be shocked in a happy way at what the scale says.

Because even though this "journey" (I hate that word) isn't about losing weight, losing weight will keep me from ever being on target for diabetes...or at least that's the idea, anyway.

Y'all, if you pray, say a prayer for me. And if you don't pray, start? haha