Dancing

[amethyststar]

The real momentof success is not the moment apparent to the crowd.  (George Bernard Shaw)

I posted a comment on another Sparker’s blog this morning (Spark People is the support site I live at now! *LOL*) regarding exercise and what I do to get my daily exercise in and I felt the urge to blog about it myself here. It is for me, right now, the single most important facet of my lifestyle change. I used to HATE to exercise. Period…end of story. I knew that it was a key ingredient in the whole lifestyle change and I just couldn’t get my brain to wrap itself around the concept and embrace it. I mean really, a woman of my size out in public, going to the gym with all those size two little things and making a fool out of my self. I so don’t think so!

Then I had a sort of epiphany (although deep down I had known it all along…go fig) Movement of ANY kind is exercise. Walking at the park, feeding the ducks. Walking to work everyday…walking AROUND work everyday in the course of my duties (I usually put in, at the very least, two miles a day running around after my doctors. I wonder if that really counts towards exercise?). But most of all, I discovered that what I love to do most is considered exercise. I love to dance. I dance at work (even if it is in my chair, and especially when I am all alone in my little room when my workmate leaves for the day), when I am at my Renaissance Faires, you can catch me dancing surreptitiously when the drums begin or we are in the vicinity of the belly dancers. When I go to my Christmas party or to other parties I frequent with a group of some of my online friends, I can dance the night away. Last August, a friend and I actually closed down a party, we danced to everything, including the twist! He was kind enough to give me a massage afterwards as my body was ready to rebel and thought I was going to fall down from sheer exhaustion

Yes, I ADORE dancing and it occurred to me as I began contemplating and planning this lifestyle change toward the end of last year, that this is what I could do for exercise. I can do it in the privacy of my own home. I can be just wild and uninhibited as I wish! *Smiles* It can be sensuous, as I explore my body and it’s reactions to the moves I make, it can be exhilarating, it can be so very exciting as I am able to bend, stretch and twist farther as I get more fit, and it can be exhausting, but it always feels GOOD! It is what helps keep me motivated.

I have several songs that I love, and when they come on, I just HAVE to move. So, I put them in a few different dance mixes that now are 45 minutes long and just boogie away. (I started out at 20 minutes sets, then went to 30 minutes and now here I am) I have two songs that inspire me every time I hear them and they are in every mix. Gloria Estefan's "Get on your feet" which for me is so apropos, and Sugarland's "Something More." When I dance, I twist, turn, stretch, and shake my hips as if there is no tomorrow. It gets my blood flowing, my heart pumping and it ALWAYS puts me in a positive frame of mind.

As I become surer of myself, more in tune with myself, as I grow to love myself more and as I grow to care less what other people think, I will venture forth to the gym. Those size two little things have nothing on me! *grins* I am a strong, vibrant, healthy, loving, succulent woman and the world is mine!

Brightest Blessings,
Ame