Funny one from rehearsal last night. S (my partner / instructor) had not had anything like enough sleep, and we were practicing tricks. The one in question involves a lift.

We successfully did the lift, he put me down, and gave me a very tiredly puzzled face.

“You are lighter.”
“Yes?”
“Lighter?”
“About 12kg lighter than when we started, yes.”
Frown, tired, steps back, looks me up and down.
“Actually you look really good! And I can feel that you’re lighter. Huh.”

Honestly I just wanted to give the guy a hug, he looked so utterly shattered.

For the first time in ages, I didn’t come home with sore feet. I found some cheap, but nice, lyrical teaching sandals and oh MAN they are the most comfortable dance shoe I have EVER had on my feet. They are like heaven and I will be buying more at some point.

I also scored a red bra for twenty bucks on special. In my size. This is like finding actual powdered hens teeth. When paired with the racktastic red dress, I look amazing; Tobermory has threatened to tattoo “PROPERTY OF {NAME}” on my arse, just in case anyone gets ideas.

Congress is three weeks away. I am so excited.

The weight loss is going pretty well. I’m a smidge over 10kg down – affected somewhat by the two pizzas last week.

I’m going to the dance congress in five weeks. The theme of the party Saturday night is “paint the town red”. Clearly, the only appropriate outfit is a red dress. So I hopped on the internet and found one second hand, that being one of my minor superpowers.

It cost me forty bucks.

It’s the first dress I’ve owned in years from a straight size shop. A shop that doesn’t aim itself at fat chicks, but at anyone who wanders in off the high street. It fits like a charm. It is, admittedly, utterly racktastic, but seeing as I have a g cup, that’s not entirely surprising.

I love it.

WTF. I cut out soda (Coke, etc) this week, on top of the rest of the diet I’ve been trying to maintain.

I’ve been steadily losing about half a kilo a week, one kg some weeks.

This week I dropped 1.5kg.

WTF.

I bought new pants in, oh. January? February?

I can now remove one of those pairs without the previous ceremony of undoing them. Upon getting on the scales, the reason why is clear – I’m 10kg down.

I’m kind of pleased with that.

Yesterday had some ups and downs. Inexplicably woke up around 7, which is Too Early For Sunday. Then my laptop – faithful 2008-era macbook – died.

But, husband sourced me a replacement (techy friends are the best), I swapped out the hard drive for it’s original drive and will sell the carcass for parts, the drive is available for data restores onto my new to me machine.

Then the Zouk team from last year had a performance scheduled. We haven’t danced the routine together since Christmas. Unsurprisingly, rehearsal was less ‘rehearsal’ and more ‘oh crap no-one remembers the choreo’. Still, we rocked it, and there are some fabulous photos turning up on Facebook.

Then I went to the regular social Sunday dance. And realised that one of my regular touchpoints for “how’s my mental health” is “how willing am I to ask strange men to dance”. Brains, huh.

I got home around 11:30, exhausted, sweaty, and blissfully happy with my place in the world.

It took me a long time to get into the right headspace to actually work on losing weight. And I finally worked out what the magic change was: I accepted myself as I was, first.

I’m not one for Internet rhetoric. But the ideas behind “health at every size” resonated with me. After all, I was fat, but I maintained reasonable-ish fitness and strength. I was always able to do what needed to be done – carry heavy loads, move equipment at work, clean and move furniture at home. I could walk wherever I needed to. I was healthy, and I had to accept myself as I was before I had the correct motivation to change.

I know that sounds counter intuitive. After all, if you’re trying to change yourself, you don’t actually like yourself as you are, right?

Prior to this, my attempts at weight loss failed. They failed because I was doing it for the wrong reasons, other people’s reasons. “I’m too fat!” “I’m ugly!” All the usual image-based horseshit. I’d lose a bit of weight, and promptly think “I hope other people are pleased with me”. Not “I’m pleased with me”, but other people.

Then I’d dive head first into a tub of icecream and attempt to feel better about myself that way. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work.

Six years of wavering around later, I finally got into a headspace where I liked myself enough to accept myself as is. Having done so, I can now work to actually change what I am – because I WANT TO. Not because of what other people think of me, but because I want to.

I’m not saying my motivations are wholly internal. I am a dancer, and I want to be a better dancer – and realistically that involves having a smaller body. But I’m OK with that. It’s not “my dance partners want me to be thinner”, it’s “I want to be smaller for dancing”. The distinction is … small, perhaps, but important.

Both the scales and my trousers confirm that I’ve lost an entire dress size. I’ve gone down a bra size. And when I was getting dressed this morning, I realised I’ve lost a little wobbly bit at the back of my arm that had been irking me. Then I did a quick recce into KMart last night, to pick up a pair of harem pants for a performance this weekend; picked up my usual pants size, and realised upon a try-on that if the elastic falls right off your hips, you should go down a size.

When I look in the mirror, I have discernible stomach areas. I find that incredibly entertaining, because it’s actually the fat layer setting itself up in a mockery of a sixpack.

I’ve lost eight kilograms since the end of November. I’m quite proud of that.