Day 1 - To dance again!

Why do I want to lose weight?  Lots of reasons.  But a simple, concrete reason is because I want to bellydance again.

I started dancing (Middle Eastern) when I was in graduate school at Florida State.  When I moved to the SF Bay Area, dance was my lifeline and getting involved in the bellydance community there was a bright spot during some dark times.  When I moved to DC, I sought out dance teachers and immersed myself in the dance community.  Some of my first and best friends were dancers (and possibly half of my Facebook friends are dancers I've met over the years!).  I have great memories of performing with these wonderful women, traveling for festivals, practicing, and costume shopping and swapping.

Fast forward to today.  I have not performed in almost 2 years.  I haven't even been to see my friends dance, partially because I've been busy, but also because it makes me sad that I don't dance anymore.  When I think about how much I used to love performing, interacting with an audience, and the simple joy of moving to the music, I get sad that I have let something like my body image get between me and something that brings me so much joy.  And its not as if I have gained a large amount of weight - but its enough to make me unhappy with myself.

Of course, there are many other reasons I want to lose weight, but all of them have to do with improving my self confidence, and fitting into the clothes in my closets full of awesomeness (my "normal" clothes closet and my costume closet!)

So, that's my "why."  I want to be dancing again in 6 months.  That's my goal.

My short term goals will change month to month.  What I want to do this month is keep this blog.  For one month.  Ideally longer, but one month at a time.  I thought it would be helpful to write a few more short term action-related goals for this month:

1) Write in this blog every day, even if its just a brief post.
2) Record my food intake 6 out of 7 days a week (try for 7).
3) Work out 4 times a week.  (This is somewhat built in for me because I am teaching spinning 2 and 3 times a week all month.)

What will you commit to?