My Victory Dance In A Little White Dress.

As those of you who've been reading my blog this summer surely are aware, I've been on a health kick.  As in a serious, hardcore, crazypants health kick.  I finally got myself all motivated to be in the best shape I can, to reclaim my athlete's body from the injuries and apathy it's endured.  I've been working really hard to maintain a healthy diet, exercise (beyond my normal bajillion hours a week dancing), rest, etc.  Last night, I felt my first real pay off, and let me tell you it was amazing.


When I got to rehearsal, it was recommended that we try as many of our quick costume changes as possible during the rehearsal (we were running the whole show, beginning to end, for the very first time.  Always an exciting step!) which made sense, since this is how the show goes for me:

Lights come up. Walk on stage.  Change clothes. Dance. Change clothes.  Back to back scenes.  Change entire costume in less than 30 seconds. Dance Again. Change Back. Dance and Sing. Dance-Change-No-Scene-Between-Dance-Change-No-Scene-Between-Dance-Solol-Sit-On-Stage-Gasping-For-Air. Change. Sing.  Dance. Sing. Intermission.

You get the picture.

Well my first change is from this beautiful, snow white, skin tight dress with pretty white character heels into a tattered slave dress.  In a few seconds.  While in motion.  I've been doing this stuff for so long, that actual changing didn't really phase me. . . but that first dress did.  See, it was the only thing anywhere near my size in the costume closet when we went to our fittings about two and a half weeks ago.  When I tried it on, I had to wiggle and wriggle and fidget and suckitinsuckitinsuckitintight to get the damn thing on, and we didn't think there was ANY way I could possibly do a quick change in and out of it, so the costume designer and I agree to keep our eyes peeled for another dress that would fit the bill.  Needless to say, neither of us found anything else and last night I found myself face-to-frills with that evil white dress. Praying I wouldn't split a seam, I began to wriggle my way into it's unforgiving, clingy embrace. To my surprise, the dress still didn't fit - it was now too loose.  Thats right, folks I had the most wonderful of mercies wiggle room.  Aaaahhh, success!

I proceeded to jump up and down, whip my hair back and forth, do the running man, and otherwise embarrass myself in sheer glee.  Every time I think about it, I want to start to dance again!  In order to fit into that dress, I've not only been alternating running and weight lifting (in addition to morning stretching, midday pilates, and dancing four days a week for several hours), stopped eating any carbohydrate that isn't 100% whole wheat and stopped eating those past seven, upped my intake of fish, limited sweets/fattening foods to once a week, cut back on red meat, avoided produce that isn't both local and organic, stopped eating at 9 pm come hell or high water, tripled my daily water in take, started meditating, and upped how many times a day I eat.

All for that white dress - and I'm not even getting married.