Alrighty folks, here it is. The story that I get asked about countless times, the story that I will never get bored of sharing!
In case you don’t know me, I am a ballet dancer. I have been a ballerina for my entire life (since I was 3 years old – yes, that counts). As you might know, ballet dancers are placed under a lot of constraints and “rules” when it comes to their body image and weight.
Growing up, I was a chubby kid. I definitely enjoyed my Sunday pasta dinners and couldn’t resist the warm chocolate chip cookies from my Middle School’s cafeteria. I grew up eating what I wanted, when I wanted. That’s all I ever knew – that’s what I thought life was about! And it was. That is, until I started getting older and started to notice that all of my friends in my ballet class had thinner legs than me and that I was the only one wearing a T-shirt over my leotard to hide my belly. I would be constantly reminded by my ballet teacher that I needed to lose weight if I wanted to become a professional ballet dancer. She referred me to nutritionists, weight-loss programs, dietitians, basically anyone who could possibly help me lose weight. She even told me that I couldn’t perform certain roles in our performances because my legs were “too big” and wouldn’t look good on stage in a tutu. I have to admit, this time of my life was rough – I left ballet class every day feeling defeated, unwanted, and an embarrassment. This carried on through high school and until I graduated the ballet academy in 2015.
When I was in ballet, I wasn’t even my heaviest. I was 5’5″ and weighed about 135 pounds (..right now you’re probably thinking, WHAT?! I bet you were picturing something completely different). But it wasn’t until college that I considered myself “fat”.
Throughout college, I gained about 25 pounds over the course of four years. This was the result of not going to ballet every day like I used to in high school, and eating an extremely high amount of unhealthy and high-calorie foods all day, every day.
Here’s a quick run down of what I used to eat on a typical day back in college:
9 AM: egg bagel with scallion cream cheese & large iced coffee with 3 inches of sugar on the bottom of the cup and milk
11 AM: trail mix (M&M’s, raisins, and assorted salted nuts)
1 PM: two slices of pizza, a chocolate chip cookie, and a soda
3 PM: some sort of snack (munchkins from Dunkin, potato chips, granola bar, etc.)
5:30 PM: 3-cheese chicken cavatappi from Applebee’s with boneless wings
9 PM: medium Reese’s/Oreo Sundae Dasher from Carvel
….yeah… it was a lot.
I started to loathe how I looked in pictures and questioned why I looked the way I did. It was during my senior year of college that I decided that I needed to lose weight. I tried almost every diet under the sun, but I just couldn’t stick with any of them long enough to see the results I desired.
The only diet that gave me some results was cutting carbs – I lost about 10 pounds. But I couldn’t stand the side effects. I felt even more hungry throughout the day, fatigued, unmotivated to exercise, and definitely hangry. It was affecting my mood and my mental state! Plus saying “no” to pasta and every other amazingly delicious food that has carbs in it was certified torture. Once I stopped cutting carbs, I gained the weight right back. Which brings me to my next point: if you want to lose weight and keep it off, you need to change your lifestyle. Diets like cutting carbs are great for short-term weight loss, but the second you start to go back to your regular eating habits, you will gain the weight right back!
I was about to give up on my hopes of losing weight. I thought that I had exhausted all of my options and that I couldn’t possibly diet for the rest of my life!
But then a friend of mine told me he recently lost 20 pounds from something called Intermittent Fasting. Little did I know that this conversation would change my life forever (yeah yeah yeah, dramatic, I know). But seriously, I would still be miserable if it wasn’t for him informing me about IF.
He was telling me about how he fasts for 18 hours and only eats for 6 hours during the day. All I could think in my head during this conversation was “are you crazy?! I could never do that! I love eating waay too much!”
Yet here I am today, doing 18-hour fasts for almost 3 consecutive years and enjoying every minute of it! Alright, maybe not every minute – those few minutes before I break my fast are not exactly fun..
If it weren’t for fasting, I wouldn’t have lost any of the weight I gained throughout college. In fact, I was able to lose even more which brings me closer to my goal weight! And here’s the best part: I don’t have to say “no” to Sunday pasta dinners or the occasional warm chocolate chip cookie. If you’re fasting, moderation and consistency will get you a long way.
So, what are you waiting for?!
