2010, the year I danced myself thin!

Camy

New member
I am starting another diary, new year, clean slate so to speak.

For those who don't know me, a recap so far:
pretty much exactly 2 years ago I decided to change my life. I had gained a ton of weight, felt depressed, never did any activity and was afraid of people, including my boyfriend, to see my body.
I had 45 pounds to lose and through conscious eating, informed choices and physical activity I lost slowly and steadily 25 of those, then my career took me to Africa where I found out that not only could I not really count calories as we ate out every single day, but also I could not exercise as gyms were few and far between. I lost intially mainly through sickness another 10 pounds but put them back on once I was not sick anymore. I have moved back to Europe now, have a job, continue my professional training and have found a wonderful dance school and now that I do have a routine I can concentrate back on my ultimate goal, to lose the last 20 pounds that stand between me and the figure I wish I had.

I work 6 hours a day in the morning, taking care of someone else's baby and household, this means I am relatively active, I also try to get an hour long walk in every day with the baby in her sling. I have no time to cook lunch, but I precook and then heat it up in the microwave, so I still eat homemade food. I walk to university and back which are a combined 40 minutes worth of brisk walking every day and I dance 4 days a week.

My plan is to eat a good healthy breakfast, mainly a yogurt with muesli and fruit, have carbs and protein for lunch, pasta with tuna sauce for instance, or chicken and rice, or a potato omelette, then have a light dinner. Salads, soups or similar. I snack on fruit and veg.
On the exercise front, I am dancing 4 times a week at a fairly good level, two days one hour, and two days an hour and a half, I do jazz and contemporary ballet. I also wish to regain the elasticity I lost so I am going to try to do a pilates video I bought, once each saturday and once each sunday.
I walk a combined hour every day just naturally to get to and from where I go, I also want to walk for at least an hour with the baby and in march I will try to bike-ride the 2 long stretches I currently do by bus and by subway.

All in all I am pretty happy, confident that I can do it and motivated. As far as goal dates go, the first 25 pounds took about 9 months to go. Of course ideally I would be by goal in the summer to wear bikinis to the beach, but I have had 25 years of summers without the perfect body and I know I will be ok even if I am not at goal yet. However we have a dance recital at the end of june and I would like to be at least 12-15 pounds lighter than now, just for confidence reasons.

Oh and I count on this diary to keep me on track, because I will write down everything I eat on here and I know I will shy away from sweets and treats more if I have to see it black on white recorded later on.

Ok, so here we go!
 
Hey! This sounds like a great plan. I used to dance when I was younger (up to the age of 15) and I loved it, but once I stopped that's when I'd started gaining weight. I'd love to get back into it post-university. Anyway, my point is is that I think dance (or anything you're passionate about) is a great way to get into shape, and I'm sure you'll have no problen getting those pounds off! Best of luck! :D
 
Hi!

Sounds like a nice plan you have going there! I like the dancing part. Must be nice to be able to dance. When I was little, my twin and I took a dance class for a year or two, but then I think someone told me I really couldn't do it very well. It's gone downhill from there! I'm just not meant to dance, I suppose:)

Good luck to you! Hope to be hearing more from you soon!

WillLose60
 
Hey sweettooth and willlose60,
thank you for your comments. I love dancing, I am sort of medium good at it, not a prima ballerina but nto exactly rubbish either. I danced full time for a year many years back and then sort of left it. After just a year I had gained enough weight to feel too selfconscious to even really go to any classes. I have lost my elasticity, but thankfully my technique is still kind of there.

Food log:
Breakfast: 1 yogurt, 1 apple
Lunch: green beans, asparagus, mushroom and shrimp stir fry with 1 egg, 1/2 a portion of tuna salad
Snack: 1 yogurt and 1 soy latte, no sugar
Dinner: large salad with tuna

I didn't do my pilates today, well, tomorrow is a new day!
Camy
 
Yesterday evening I ate some popcorn on top if my regular food, I had calories to spare so I felt it would be ok and better than any of the other munchies we had in the house (peanuts).

Today I did not manage to do Pilates either because my flatmate is in the living room and has been since this morning just watching TV. My own room is very small and I cannot do it in here, so no Pilates. Maybe I will manage to do some during the week. I have had the DVD for a few weeks now and haven't even taken the wrapper off!

I had a lot to do today, clean my room, do laundry, clean the kitchen a bit, bake a cake for my birthday on tuesday to take to dance, possibly also bake muffins for my co-students, write a paper on alcohol and pregnancy... I am about halfway done, all is clean and I have done some research but cakes are not baked yet and paper is not written. I will do it after this little break I am allowing myself.

Food log:
Breakfast: 1 yoghurt, 1 apple
Lunch: 1 portion of asparagus risotto
Dinner: champignon pan fry with 1 egg, green salad

Camy
 
OK, so I was reading online and I have decided something crazy... I have a little obsession with gymnastics, love to watch it and to follow it, so next year in September I would like to start doing gymnastics myself. I know 25 is an odd age to start doing them but apparently it is entirely possible to do it, of course not elite level, but I just want to learn some, have fun.
It would also not be the first time I do gymnastics, I did them competitively from the age of 6 to 9 when a neck injury kept my parents from sending me back (I fell off the beam onto my head). Then I did one year much more relaxedly when I was 16-17, instead of athletism as my school sport.
I will have to find a gym that takes grown up beginners, but I really hope it will be doable. However for this to succeed I need to lose the weight (I'd rather fall on my head weighing as little as possible ;) ) and to gain flexibility.

So hopefully this will motivate me to work harder. I know it is pretty nuts, but I am a pretty nutty person :)!
Camy
 
Hi Camy,

The asparagus risotto sounds like it could be nice... do you make it yourself?

Good luck with the pilates :D let us know how it goes x
 
all I can say is GO FOR IT :) we can do anything we set our minds to achieving !
 
Hey tutti, yes usually I make it myself though this week it was a bought thing, sort of like a ready meal though uncooked, so you have to cook it yourself. It is not as nice as homemade but it is much faster!

Trusylver, thank you, yes I also think that anything can be achieved!

I am feeling a bit bla, today was a weird day, my stomach felt awful then great, then ached, then was hungry... weird! Tomorrow, or rather in 50 minutes is my birthday. I have no problem with getting older though I sure did not see myself here doing this at 25 (I used to think I would be married and have a child, or at least be pregnant... obviously this is not going to happen this year), but I am ok with where I am at.
However I am a bit sad, my friends all live far away, my parents also, my boyfriend lives even further away... I have some friends here but we are not really close friends yet. I made myself a cake and don't quite know who to share it with. So I am a bit sad about that. And I bought myself a few presents though they most likely won't arrive until next week, but other than that I won't get any pressies, which also makes me sad, not about the stuff, I can go without it, but because I have nobody close enough to give me a present here.
Oh well, I have a ton to do so I will probably be entertained and should not be too sad.

Food today:
Breakfast: 1 yoghurt with muesli
Snack: 1 snickers
Lunch: asparagus risotto, 80 cals worth of smoked salmon
Snack: 1 fruit juice
Dinner: vegetable stir fry, 1 mug of soup

Exercise: 75 minutes of dance

Camy
 
I'm sorry that you are feeling a bit low. Happy birthday though!

:party:

Thanks for commenting on my thread btw. I'm raising my calories to see how it works and hopefully I'll still lose weight. Good luck with your own weight loss!
 
Happy belated birthday! Hope you bought yourself some fun stuff. Wow, you're just young! I feel old now. I'm 32 years old! Oh don't feel bad about not having any children yet. My twin didn't have her first child until she was 28. I can't even have children:( I have two nieces and a nephew (and I'm soon to be an auntie again!) and I just love them to bits!:)

I hope you had a Happy Birthday!

WillLose60
 
Thank you guys, the first 3/4 of my birthday were quite sucky, but then dancing was awesome, I brought my cake to dance and handed it out and everyone loved it, I made a lot of new friends I think. And we learned a new "trick", and out of the 20 in the class only one girl and me managed to do it on our first day, so I am pretty proud of myself!

My monday and wednesday class is a bit low level for me, it is pure beginners, level 1, however level 2 and 3 are at times I cannot go, so today I am going to try a level 4 class (out of 4 levels). It is longer (90 minutes instead of 60-70) and apparently insanely difficult and demanding. I will see how it goes.

Yesterday's food log can be forgotten, I had a ton of chocolate for breakfast (a snickers, later choc rice cakes, later m&ms), then went on the right track, had salmon and wholegrain rice with a little bit of tomato sauce for lunch, an apple instead of a piece of cake for my snack and a mug of soup and some 3 minute noodles for dinner. plus the last remnants of my birthday cake (maybe 1/2 a piece, I scratched it off the sides of the cake tray).
 
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Oh well wow! That dance class was seriously überhard! It is quite classical, starts with like 20-30 minutes on bar, then jumps, legs and pirouettes and just the last 10 minutes are choreography. I think it is too much for my level of skill but when I spoke to the teacher she said, she thought I should do it, I will learn quickly she said.
Some people are sooo good in it, some are ok, I hope one day in a few months to be ok... today just following and doing about half of it was very hard!
There is one obese girl in the class, I have to say she is alright, not one of the best but not the worst either and I am really impressed, it takes some serious guts (or a very healthy self esteem) to dance at that weight. I mean we dance in frickin' leotards! Not like you can hide anything in there. I was surprised to see someone so big in such a high level class and I am glad that she is, big people should not hide away!

Anyhow, I also ate a few biscuits today, I bought some gluten free dark choc biscuits that are 45 cals each and I ate a few. They are yummy! And I also bought quinoa as my carb for next week. I think the most feasible thing at this point with work and all is too stick to 1 carb a week as I can cook big amounts and then just eat it for the whole week; this week it was brown rice, next week it will be quinoa, then potatoes and then pasta and then we go back to brown rice, that way I only ever get each carb once a month.

So corrected food log:
Breakfast: 1 yoghurt with muesli
Snack: 4 biscuits
Lunch: tomato, tuna, sweetcorn and rice salad with 1 spoonful of light mayo (for about 3 portions, I ate 1 portion) and 0% fat yoghurt to make up for missing mayo!
Snack: 1 tangerine, 1 fruitjuice
Dinner: green salad with pan fried champignons, 4 biscuits

Exercise:
90 minutes of jazz dance, 1 hour of walking with the baby

Camy
 
Food log:
Breakfast: 8 biscuits (they are all gone now), 1 apple
Snack: 1 tomato, 1 tangerine
Lunch: 1 (large) portion of rice salad
Dinner: artichoke and egg scramble, large green salad. An hour after dinner I was starved, I ate one small cup of rice salad

Exercise (thursday is my rest day):
2 hours walk with the baby in the sling

Camy
 
I weighed myself and I am about a kg and a bit (2-3 pounds) down from 10 days ago, which is great news. However not owning a good scale is pretty shitty, my own one weighed me this morning as 4 kg heavier than I actually am, and this was first thing in the morning stark naked and after peeing! I then completely stripped at the people where I work and weighed myself in there. I had also weighed myself there about 10 days ago, so that is where I get my original number from.
I will get my period either today (saturday) or sunday, so I might even be a bit bloated. I definitely have a crazy hunger today, was hungry all the time. While I was out on my walk with the baby in her sling I was nasuseous from hunger so I went into a McDonalds and I am very proud to say that, although I really wanted french fries (I don't care much for fast food, I can't eat most fast food so I don't really ever go there but if there is one thing I really really love is McD french fries... yum!) I bought their tiny salad (25 cals) with olive oil and vinegar dressing (75 cals I am guesstimating) and a fruit yoghurt. So my snack was 250 cals but way healthier than if I had eaten the french fries. I am proud of myself.
I am also mighty proud that I pulled through! I did all 4 classes this week and I wanted to go, there was no negotiating with myself about going or not, I felt like going and enjoyed it most of the time.

Food log (I had more than my goal of cals, but well... I will work it off tomorrow going for a run or something):
Breakfast: yighurt with muesli, 1 apple
Snack: 1 fruit yoghurt and side salad
Lunch: cuttlefish, 1 teaspoon of light mayo, 1/3 portion of rice salad
Dinner: creamed spinach, 1 small portion of tuna salad (no mayo), 1 yoghurt
TV watching snack: 7 gummy bears

Exercise:
1 hour walk with baby in sling, 90 minutes lyrical ballet dance (really hard core on the heart rate today as the choreography started with us jumping up and down for 20 seconds then frenetic dancing for 3 minutes, then repeat 15 times!)

Great week, I hope next week is as awesome! Camy
 
My body asked for more food today, I am going to have my period tomorrow probably and I guess my metabolism just needed more than I was giving it, so I had a 1800 cal day and my body feels good now. Full and content. It is 300 cals more than my usual upper limit, but limits have to be flexible because this is a human body we are talking about and a human body is not rigid.
I saw myself getting into the shower this morning and I don't know if it is because I am watching a lot of the biggest loser lately, but I look ok. My back is thin (ish), I still have the tummy, and I know that will be the hardest bit, and I still have a few pounds on each arm and on my thighs, but overall I look fine. I am happy that I see myself this way. This is a huge thing to see myself as pretty. I know I am not ther yet, but I can see what I will eb like and I like it!
I did an hour of Pilates today (Yogalates really, ;)) and man did it wear me out. I thought it was a like a jokey little DVD, this autralian woman just doing like 3 leg lifts at a time, but I did it to the best of my ability and I got sweaty and tired. Really tired! Great!

Food log:
Breakfast: 1 fruit yoghurt
Lunch: 1 serving of pasta with tomato sauce
Snack: 4 rice cakes, 1 glass of juice
Dinner: vegetable and shrimp stir fry with 1 egg and 2 egg whites, 4 rice cakes, 1 rice pudding

Exercise:
1 hour of Yogalates
 
Day isn't over yet but I will post now anyhow. Did 45 minutes of Yogalates, then stopped as my flatmate was coming home and I was embarrassed to lie in the living room doing a workout DVD (and because I really don't like the last 15 minutes of that workout DVD, I hate a couple of postures in stretching, I hate them in dance but still always do them, but at home it it harder to bring myself to do it. I really hope as my flexibility increases I will be able to do them and not hate them so much... but it is one of those things, I hate to do them so I don't do them often enough to actually learn to do them properly and then stop hating them, vicious circle).

Anyhow I did ok foodwise this far and I am pretty sure I will do well the rest of the day. I did not get my period, which sucks as I was counting on it starting today for my week to go well (it lasts 3 and a half days, and I wanted to be nearly done by wednesday so my wednesday class and my friday class would go well and I would only be uncomfortable monday-tuesday. However if I get it tomorrow monday-tuesday-wednesday will be uncomfy. I also was hoping that it finally is a regular. The last 2 cycles were 28 days on the dot and I loved it. My thyroid issues made it really really irregular for all of my teen years and early adulthood. It used to come once every 30 days, then again 3 months later, then 29 days, then 50... ugh! Now on the thyroid meds I am fairly regular (28-32 days ish) and I love having that under control.

Anyhow, food log:
Breakfast (I woke up late): 1 glass of juice (half juice, half water actually)
Lunch: 100 g of creamy spinach, half a plate of pasta with tomato sauce (was full after that half so stopped)
Snack: rice pudding
Dinner: 200 g of creamy spinach, 1 portion of pot noodles (my last pack :( )
Total cal count: 1000 cals (which is ok as yesterday I had 1800... evening it out)

Exercise:
45 minutes of Yogalates
 
looks like u are doing great! OHH how i would love to dance! I was just not meant for it i guess.. And happy belated b-day to you also! lol
 
Thank you c4b! I think everyone can dance, honestly! As long as you love doing it... you should! And it doesn't have to be fucking 150 euro a month classes, you can just dance in your living room to some music you love!

What a day, I had to hold a presentation so I had no time for lunch, just grabbed some junk which was bad, but I made up for it I think, I had a good breakfast and a very green dinner. Also it rained so baby and I just went for a miniwalk in the sling but she was a good girl generally which was great because I had to prepare that presentation with her hanging off me... not the easiest. However we got praised highly for the presentation, so I am happy about that.
Then thought long and hard about going to dance and then decided to go, which was great because I had a blast, I am wiped out, I am actually in pain right now. We did some huge stretches, on the bar, and then on the floor. I am close to a full split, which is huge! HUGE! The teacher did expect a 220 degree split (one leg on a chair, other one on the floor... just crazy) but the 4 or 5 of us who are "new" to the class didn't have to do the chair torture thank the heavens, but soon we were told we have to do the chair thing. Oh well... I will probably actually split in two and need an ambulance to get home.

Food log:
Breakfast: 1/2 glass of juice, 1 kiwifruit, 1 orange
Midday snack: 1 bag of minirice cakes
Lunch: 1 small bag of chips (250 cals)
Snack: 3 small gf cookies
Dinner: 1 mug of aubergine soup, 1 giant green salad with sweetcorn

Exercise:
30 minute walk with baby in sling
90 minutes of jazz dance
 
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