Dancing from Fat to Freedom- Stepping out

Yesterday I saw the TV reality show “Dance Your A$$ Off” for the first time.

I know, it takes me a while to figure out what is trendy.

And I have to tell you, I started watching the show out of morbid curiosity from the title. It closely resembles the name of this blog, and I thought what the heck is THIS show about?
Now that I have seen it, I must admit that I am left with mixed feelings.

First of all, I am not a reality show kind of girl. I have only watched a grand total of 5 minutes of “American Idol.” I have never watched the Bachelor, the Bachelorette, the Amazing Race, Big Brother, the Apprentice, Survivor, Temptation Island, Dancing with the Stars, or any of those shows. I admit that besides the occasional Biggest Loser re-run, I have only purposed to watch a limited number of reality shows ever.

“Top Chef” and “Project Runway” on Bravo.

“Groomer Has It” on Animal Planet.

And “Bathroom Divas: Opera Star” on Ovation Television. (Heck yeah, I’m a classy dame.)

That’s the end of my list.

Until yesterday, when I had fallen into a deep pit of self pity, and found myself watching a marathon of Dance Your Butt Off. (Which I really really really wish they had used Butt instead of A$$, and this is my blog, so I’m changing it.)

For any of you who don’t know the premise of the show, it’s like Dancing with the Stars meets Biggest Loser. Fatties like us have to diet, exercise, AND have 3 days to learn a fairly complex dance routine. The scores of both their dance score and percentage of weight loss determine the winner of the episode. And it’s brilliant. And ridiculous. Kinda like your old pal Charlie.

At first I thought it was going to be like a train wreck. I’ve seen myself dancing on stage enough times to know that not every fat girl is pleasing to watch dance. It’s often horrifying, and I count myself in that category. For those of you who don’t know me, I am a huge fan of musical theatre, and had the opportunity to be Roxie Hart in the show "Chicago" a few years back. It wasn’t fantastic, but I remember how good it felt to be up on stage acting like I was the sexiest thing since sliced bread. When I watch the DVD of that same performance, somehow the magic is lost, and I’m not even close to sliced bread. I’m downright crummy. So I wasn’t expecting this show to be much different than watching that painful moment as I totally miss my Fosse cartwheel (while wearing tango heels, mind you) and land flat on my butt in front of 500 people. I expected this show to be a total miss and all that jazz.

But it isn’t exactly a miss. It’s more like a “work in progress” kind of show. You see that there is loads of talent underneath the unflattering costumes and buckets of sweat. Cause these people are pretty good at dancing. Way better than I expected. In fact, they could dance me right off the stage.

Which leads me to a very important thought about being fat. Sure, maybe we can’t do things like everyone else. Maybe we have to work twice as hard to make it look as good as one of the skinnys. But if we keep working on our dreams, all of a sudden, when we DO lose the weight, we are better off for it. Because we worked twice as hard, we reap twice the reward. We make it look easy. We make it look better.

So after tossing and turning about Dance your Butt off, I have to admit, this show is a winner. It promotes the idea that fat people are talented too. Cause we are. We can do things like everyone else, we just have to modify it a little. We have to work harder at it.

With the diet, I admit that I haven’t been working hard at it. In fact, over the last 2 days, I have quite successfully undone all the hard work I did last week. Yep, I’m back up to 182, and I’m not afraid to admit that. Just three days of slacking and 5 pounds is back on. It’s not what I want to say, but it’s the truth. I suppose I need to get really serious about this whole process again and start dancing my own butt off.

So here’s my idea. Once a week, I am going to post a real video of myself. I don’t know how yet, but I will figure it out. I need MORE accountability. Yeah, as if the blog isn’t enough, I have to push myself further. I have to open up more. Lovely, huh? But I am going to attempt to do things that I couldn’t do before. Like zip up clothes I never dreamed would fit. Like dance really well. Like sing and not be ashamed of how I look while I am doing it. I have to learn to be comfortable in my own body, and that is going to take work.

If you have any suggestions of things that you would like to see me attempt, please let me know. I will run out of ideas pretty quickly. I’m a writer first, and I have a limited number of talents. I don’t JUST want to do things I already know I can, because this is an exercise about broadening my horizons. Learning I don’t have to stick to the script of what I know. I want to grow in who I am. I want to start truly dancing from fat to freedom.

If nothing else, this will be great entertainment for you all. I’m sure it’s going to be a train wreck indeed. But that’s half the fun. I want to say that I tried everything. So bring me your ideas.

I think I’m ready to start dancing my butt off.