The First Step...

… is admitting you have a problem.

So hi guys. I know it’s gone silent around here. Dead air. It’s not that I haven’t had things to say, but for awhile there it was hard to figure out which of the many voices fighting for attention was going to get the floor. This is The Fat Dancer, but should I focus on the Fat part or the Dancer part? Or both? And how?

There was some other stuff going on, too; just life stuff but pretty distracting and also a general time suck, and blogging had to take a back seat for awhile.

And then there’s the happy, happy fact that I’ve managed to gain 15 pounds since I started blogging. In 10 weeks. Quite an accomplishment, if I do say so myself.

I’ve been thinking a lot about body positivity during the hiatus, and I’ll have much more to say on that in the days to come, but in the meantime, my clothes don’t fit. And as much as I’d like to come to terms with, and even learn to love, how I look at this weight, I am not at a place where I can own that. I don’t like feeling squeezed into everything except yoga pants, and I don’t like what I see in the mirror.

Even more than the weight, though, is how I’ve been feeling, which is basically yucky. I’ve been sick more this semester than I can ever remember being. My stress levels are up again, I’m tired, and maybe even a little depressed. Which is ironic given that I justify my carb-eating extravaganzas by telling myself that carbs are what make me happy. Gotta love irony.

I’m also tired of feeling all angsty about my struggle with weight and food (which lately has been less a struggle than a total surrender). I’ve talked before about my carb addiction, and I was half joking, but only half. Now it’s time for rehab. And we all know rehab doesn’t work without accountability.

So I came up with a solution that combines all of my non-day-job hobbies and habits -- dance, writing (in the form of blogging), cooking and body/weight/diet issues – and public accountability. Starting Dec. 1 (which was yesterday, I know, but I’ve been stuck in avoidance mode – so shoot me), and for the next 13 months, I am committing myself to changing my approach to food, and dealing with my carb addiction. With the support of my family (even my cauliflower-hating daughter who knows what she’s in for), I will be switching from the “eat whatever you want” diet (which I have clearly demonstrated is enormously successful at putting on about 1.5 pounds per week) to a low glycemic load diet, which essentially means no bread, pasta, rice, potatoes or white sugar.

I have no illusions that the next 13 months will be easy; nor do I have any expectation that this transition will occur without its occasional slip-ups and mistakes. But I will use this space, at least in part, to blog about my journey.

This does not mean that I am turning this blog into a diet or weight-loss blog. It’s still going to focus on body image, dance, and other related issues. The focus of my experiment is not really weight loss, even though I do expect to lose some weight. But I will not be tracking daily progress or pounds lost per week here. I will be focusing on the fact that I’m doing what I’m doing out of love for myself and as part of honoring the body that works so hard for me. I will NOT be doing this from a place of body hatred – I know that has to change for me to change anything at all.

That doesn’t mean I won’t talk about weight loss if it happens, but that’s not the point. The point, for me, is a) making a transformation that I believe will ultimately have a positive impact on many aspects of my life and b) sticking to something for a year, even when it gets hard.

And when it does get hard, I’ll just tell myself I can wait until Jan. 1, 2014, and then I can eat as much mashed potatoes and pasta as I want. I have some faith that on that day, I won’t want as much as I think I do, and that I will have learned to honor my body enough to not overdo it too much.

In addition to this blog, I’ve started two boards on Pinterest – one on low glycemic load recipes (The Fat Dancer’s Dinner), and one on body image (The Fat Dancer). I’ve got a new logo that should help tie everything together as well. Feel free to follow them as well as this blog.

That leaves only one thing left to do. In the tradition of all rehab programs everywhere, the first step toward recovery is admitting you have a problem.

My name is Lara, and I have a problem with food. But I’m going to do something about it. Join me on my journey.