A week ago, I had a rather horrifying experience.
I tried on two of the costumes for my dance recital at the end of May.
I know I’m not as thin as the last time I was in a dance recital, five years ago. But when my dance teacher suggested that she order a size medium for my costumes, it made sense. A medium-size costume is what I used to order, and I typically wear medium-sized clothes.
It seems that “medium” was a very bad choice. “Medium” is the size that makes me look in the mirror and shudder in horror. “Medium” is the size that makes me say to myself, “I don’t want to leave my room wearing this costume, much less get up on stage.” “Medium” is the size that causes the dance costume to ride up in unpleasant ways when I actually try to move in it, and not just stand still and suck my stomach in as far as it will go.
These “mediums” are not made out of helpful material. I have worn very flattering medium-sized dance costumes in my past, even when I weighed more than I do now. But these two costumes are made of very, very thin, shiny, stretchy material. That very thin, shiny material is stretched across all those body areas that I try to hide. The light reflects of the shininess, and hey, what do you know, that is not a pretty sight at all.
After trying on these costumes last week, I got the idea that I needed to lose seven pounds in seven weeks. Not only would I hopefully look a hell of a lot better in my dance costumes, but hopefully the exercise necessary to accomplish this would make me stronger in actually performing the dances.
And I do say “necessary exercise,” because here’s the thing–my diet is actually really good. I almost wish I had a worse diet, so that I could make some drastic changes to it and be able to drop some weight quickly. I do occasionally enjoy sweets and white bread, but a typical day of eating for me looks something like, oatmeal for breakfast, steamed kale and lentils for lunch, and roasted sweet potatoes and chickpeas for dinner. With some pomegranate juice and chocolate soy milk thrown in there, along with some sort of very small dessert-like something. I can’t really make a whole lot of modifications to that, other than eating less of it all.
But I’ve thrown away the last of my Bunny Basket Eggs, and put the rest of the Easter candy in the freezer, to be enjoyed after the dance recital. I made cupcakes for a friend’s birthday, and I threw away the leftovers. I’ve made an easy cut to my daily calorie consumption by no longer drinking the chocolate soy milk.
So, this means exercise, which I hate. Lots of it. I’m trying to work myself up to starting (and actually completing) the torturous 30-Day Shred this Monday, the day I get back from a trip to Chicago.
It means six weeks (because the first week has already passed) of a new level of self-discipline. Because the alternative involves me being on a stage in front of an audience filled with people who will undoubtedly be sitting there saying, “Look at that girl, the one with the lights reflecting off her shiny, round middle section! Yikes, I’m glad that’s not my daughter, embarrassing herself like that.”
