Jewel's Belly Dancing Blog

Post Diet Update - April

2013-04-18T14:38:00.003-07:00

Liver, bacon and spinach - healthy or what?

Here’s an update on my post diet progress. The good news is that I’ve continued to be the same weight that I was when I completed the diet - around 9 stone 4lbs - ie towards the middle of the correct BMI (weight relative to height).

I have tried to keep my diet as healthy as possible, but allowed myself treats too. I have become aware of some of the foods that give me particular health benefits and try to keep them in my diet as far as often as possible. The biggest change is breakfast – before, I used to have cereal that had dried or freeze dried fruit in it, but I seemed to get hungry and need a snack at mid morning, and the snack would often be crisps. Since I switched to porridge, that seems to get me through to midday. As well as this, I have recognised that fruit was helping to give me a sweet tooth, so I don’t have it very often now, and get my vitamin C from tomatoes and red peppers. I had a problem with cravings for sweet food before, but this is much less now. I do have plenty of salad and cooked vegetables. I no longer have puddings with sugar in, but often have natural yoghurt, or coconut milk jelly set with gelatine, with no added sugar (home made). If I start to feel tired, I ask myself if it has been caused by what I have been eating, and try to improve on this if possible. I am much more aware than before of the effects of different kinds of food on my energy levels and general health. It has been a balancing act to try and get things right, but I feel that I am winning at the moment. If I do get off course, I feel I can get back on again.

I make most of what I eat myself, because with ready made processed food, you have no control over what goes into it. It takes time, but I know it’s worth it. This leads me to the only bad news, which is that I am disappointed by how difficult it is to buy healthy but convenient food – my husband tried to buy me a healthy ready meal recently, and did find a brown rice chicken risotto with no added sugar or e-numbers, but it was aimed at toddlers, so wasn’t a big enough portion for me. Why can’t something so healthy be aimed at adults too? Why do manufacturers of vegetable soup for example always seem to add a bit of sugar to something that would otherwise be healthy?

Although I haven’t become anorexic, I can now understand why people do because losing weight and keeping it off has given me a feeling of control over an area of life that I’d practically given up on. I can see why this feeling would be addictive for some people. I myself would not want to be too thin, though, as it is more important to me to stay healthy, and also my face would look too bony, and I feel it looks better with a little bit of padding around it. I am happy with how I look now and want to stay this way now.

I would like to say a big thank you to Zoe Harcombe for coming up with this diet and also her obesity book, which I found interesting and enlightening too. I would recommend all the books I've read by her so far.

I am hoping to put a photograph of myself on next week’s update so you can see how I look now, and will be updating you soon with more news on what dancing I have been doing.

March Diet Update

2013-03-27T07:54:00.001-07:00

Just an update on the diet – I reached 9 ½ stone/115lbs (60kg) about a month ago, and since then have been incorporating some of the rest of the family’s food into what I’m eating, as I still have to eat with them. They have also been having some of what I eat. I thought I’d finished trying to lose weight, but then lost another 2lbs unintentionally. I keep getting weighed once a week, so that I can keep fine-tuning what I’m eating and make sure my weight is maintained. I am happy with it as it is don’t want it creeping back on.

I enjoyed lots of health benefits whilst on the diet, and didn’t want to lose them, so have kept my diet as healthy as I can. I’m much more aware of the effects of what I’m eating than before. I thought I had a bit of a chocolate addiction problem, so am trying just having that every two days. If I feel I’ve had too much at one go, I will go two days between eating it. On a “chocolate day”, I make sure I eat it after a meal and try to keep to three meals a day, with a small healthy snack at 9 pm, which I can’t seem to get rid of or I wake up feeling hungry overnight.

We have had a longer than usual winter in the UK and, this has meant having salads when there’s still snow on the ground. I have bought some new clothes but it has been too cold to wear them. Finally, not many people have noticed that I’ve lost weight because I’m still under so many layers of clothing. But sooner or later, warmer weather will arrive and they will. Overall, I'm very pleased with the diet.

Turquoise Top - and Weight Loss

2013-02-14T02:38:00.001-08:00

I have taken the pads out of the cups of my turquoise belly dancing top – they spoilt the shape. I do sometimes wonder why manufacturers put padding in larger size tops like this anyway. What to do with them? Perhaps spray them black and attach them to a hair band to wear as Minnie mouse ears.

Joking apart, diet-wise, after a two week plateau, by last weekend I was down to 9 stone 12. Before stepping on the scales, I already suspected that I’d lost a bit overnight as my “love handles” seemed to have gone down a bit. I also felt a bit tired, which seems to be a sign that my weight is going down. I have a freezer drawer full of healthy diet food, and am letting the family have their usual food. Weekends are the most difficult, particularly if eating out, but last weekend I was able to find a Thai restaurant with menu choices that enabled me to stick to my diet (as far as I am aware – there may have been hidden sugar or other ingredients).

Losing weight has been like a journey into the past, as I am able to fit into things I know I bought in a certain year. I have been thinking about when I was last this weight, which was about 10 years ago. I notice that moving to Sheffield a few years ago from the south east made me go up two dress sizes, and then more recently, rediscovering baking probably contributed too, as I had reached a size 16 by the end of last year. I was once a 10-12 when I was in my mid-twenties, but a sedentary lifestyle took its toll. I was an office worker for many years, and although I would always go out at lunchtimes, my packed lunch was always sandwiches, which as Zoe Halcombe points out in her recipe book, are liable to make you gain weight, something I hadn’t realised before (I would have bulgar wheat salad in future). And there so often seemed to be cakes on offer whether for a birthday, someone getting married or leaving, or occasions like Christmas and Easter – and you were a social outcast if you didn’t take part.

I have recently started to participate in a cake event at my son’s school, but have tried to offer some healthier options, as you can see from my “culinary creations” blog (link on the right).

It has been like a journey into the future as well as the past, as I wonder what my natural weight will actually be. Apparently, I will not lose any more once I reach it. I do need some “temporary” clothes to tide me over as my figure changes. So last week, I tried to go clothes shopping, but found I am in between a size 12 and a 14 in most shops, so put things on hold for now. Weather conditions made it a bit too cold for walking around anyway. Perhaps my best option is stretchy clothes for the time being. On the plus side, I felt happier looking at myself in the mirror while trying on clothes than before. This is more how I want to look. And hopefully, the belly dancing will help tone me up too.

Duffed Up Skirt - and Progress With Diet

2013-01-30T00:00:00.000-08:00

I will never put my belly dancing outfits through the washing machine again - here you can see my black skirt with the waistband all duffed up. To make matters worse, the waistband and skirt have become detached on the right hand side. So, I will have to either take it apart and buy some new waistband and put it all together again, or just throw it in the bin.

I will have to hand wash my belly dancing clothes next time. This sort of thing must be a problem for dancers who perform to an audience and have to wear these costumes, as they can get a bit sweaty when you are moving around a lot. Some of them must need a specialist dry clean, which would be very expensive.

You are probably all wondering how I am getting on with my diet, well I’m afraid it’s not very good news there either – progress has stalled over the past two weeks, in spite of me staying on phase 1, the most restrictive part of the diet, which is supposed to shift the weight quicker than phase 2. I haven’t been cheating either. I considered buying some new scales in case there was something wrong with these, but they don’t come cheap, so I tried to find help elsewhere first.

So,without further ado, I hotfooted it over to the Halcombe diet website. There’s a moderated forum, for users to swap tips, and ask for advice for any problems they are encountering. You have to pay, starting at £1 a month to join, if you feel you need ongoing support. But anyone can look at the forum threads without joining and many different problems are covered. Mine seems quite common – quick weight loss at the beginning but then reaching a plateau. One of the moderators said that what can happen is that the body thinks it is being starved, so holds onto its fat reserves until it realises it is going to get fed, then begins to relinquish them again. This can be a lengthy process lasting weeks or months.

So I am now resigned to a long haul to shift that final stone (14 lbs/6.35 kg). But hopefully it will be off in time for summer.

And, perhaps, better news next week.

Tackling Weight Problems 2

2013-01-24T09:16:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm back again ...

This is a continuation of last week’s post, when I began to review Zoe Harcombe’s books on obesity and her diet books. See last week for my review of her obesity book. Also – as promised – a video of me belly dancing. Making this has made me realise I have got a long way to go, but I hope you enjoy watching. I filmed this on our laptop, using HP Mediasmart, but it wasn't possible to edit it, and it had to go straight onto YouTube, so if I do this again, I will find a different way.

And remember, the camera puts 7 lbs on. I am thinner than this in real life... especially nowadays, which brings me to ...

This week – Zoe Harcombe diet and recipe books

My experience of conventional “calorie controlled diets”, is that they just seem to involve too much hunger, temptation and, above all else, weight loss is too slow. It’s just a struggle, generally. Not everyone wants to or can join a support group, and not everyone wants to have to live on milk shakes. In this day and age, there has to be a better way. To illustrate some of the problems with conventional diets, in the Weight Watchers diet in the Daily Mail “Weekend” magazine, recently one of the breakfasts was porridge, but with fruit, which would have given me sugar cravings, and another was just a croissant, which was supposed to last me four hours until lunchtime. As it would be a refined carbohydrate, I know from past experience that I would have become hungry by mid-morning. And then what would happen to the other croissants in the pack?

I was given Zoe's diet recipe book for Christmas and then ordered the “proper” diet book for the diet she’s invented. There are also other books (not reviewed). The diet consists of three “phases”, phase 1 is perhaps best described as a sort of detox, or stone age type diet, and lasts for five days. This part can be used on its own if you just want a few pounds off quickly or you can (if you wish) progress to phase 2, which enables you to eat a wider variety of food. Phase 3, is for weight maintenance once you reach your goal. Throughout these phases, you need to stay off sugar and processed food.

The recipe book arrived first, and I was able to try some of these out and lose some weight without even needing the diet book. I wish I’d got weighed at the beginning as I don’t actually know how much I lost in those first five days, and it could have been anywhere between 4 and 7lbs. Although I made some mistakes by beginning this way, it does show how effective the diet is.

The Harcombe diet is different to calorie controlled ones from the outset, in that you do not have to go hungry – that’s optional, and although the first five days are strict in terms of what you can eat, after that it becomes more flexible. You are allowed a limited range of snacks such as carrot sticks, natural yoghurt or tuna. The aim, however, is to have three meals a day, so I tried to gradually wean myself off snacks, and made sure I only ate when actually hungry. I suspect the reason for three meals is so as not to make your pancreas produce insulin too often, which as Zoe says in her obesity book, would tend to lead to weight gain. It is quite complicated and easy to make mistakes. Nevertheless, if you are serious about losing some weight, this seems to be a sensible and effective way to tackle it. It certainly shifted a stone (14lbs) for me pretty quickly.

My health and eating before the diet

I am a married mum of one, am in my 40s, a lifelong non-smoker. I’m in good health, with no allergies and not taking any medicines. Apart from raised blood pressure at the end of my pregnancy, and after the birth of my son (never dangerously high), I have never had a serious illness or condition. I have never had an eating disorder or been obese. I’ve always aimed to stay healthy, without going “over the top” with it. I am a sensible eater, and get about 2-30 minutes walking exercise 6 days a week, but have gradually put on weight over the years and have sometimes wondered why. I’d reached a BMI of 27 around December 2012. As this was outside the recommended weight range, I decided action was needed.

Fortunately, I drink decaf tea and coffee without sugar, and only occasional alcohol. These things proved useful for the diet.

My experience

Although I found the food rather unpalatable to begin with a bit – well - “wholefood” for my taste, I gradually seemed to lose my sweet tooth, and things did taste better. I think one problem with trying to eat unprocessed food alongside processed food is that there is much more flavour in the latter. It is a case of persevering until you get used to the salads, porridge etc. I knew from past experience of giving up sugar for a couple of weeks, for the benefit of my teeth, that this in itself made me lose a bit of weight, but I found I missed my treats and was soon back on them again. That time, although I initially lost my sweet tooth, I soon regained it again. The cause of me going back to sugary food might have been cravings from added sugar in ready meals, and Zoe explains in her diet book that eating sugar tends to lead to cravings for it, because the yeasts that live in your gut feed off it and grow (like making beer). And as they grow, they demand more.

I often felt I was missing a bit of a “treat”, I would have my bit of salad or soup and think “is that it?” but goodness me, how much more of a treat it was to be able to fit into smaller clothes. I stuck to the more restrictive phase 1 meals for the first five days, then continued with these but, because I tend to walk everywhere, I felt I needed a bit more to go on, so added in some “phase 2” carbohydrate:, a baked potato here, a piece of sugar-free wholemeal bread there. I wasn’t meant to have milk in drinks, but did it anyway, and still lost weight. This loss stopped after three weeks, so I ditched the bread and spuds, and began to lose weight again, albeit slowly (1 ounce in four days). By now, I was just above the recommended weight for my height, so I had expected things to get slower. I have chosen to stay off fruit, to help stop me getting a sweet tooth, and take a multivitamin a couple of times a week, although there is probably no need (see health benefits, below).

I had a BMI of 27 at the beginning, but within a week, this fell to less than 26. One drawback was that it proved difficult to cook meals from the book that the family would eat, so I ended up having to cook separately for them a lot of the time. Coming off sugar, including natural sugar found in fruit was a big help with resisting temptation – within the first week, I wasn’t bothered about chocolate any more. I have been given a few chocs over the Christmas period and have been able to pop them in my wardrobe and ignore them for now- I would not normally be able to do this. Unfortunately, one of my favourite websites is “Pinterest”, which has lots of photos and recipes for desserts and cakes, as well as fashion, pets etc., and I soon learned to stay off it, much as I like the site.

The first few days felt odd, I did get a headache for the afternoon and evening, but it wasn’t unbearable, and paracetamol would have sorted it. I did without as I wanted to see how long it would last. In any case, I was not worried by it as I normally give up chocolate for Lent and the same thing happens then. I almost felt as if I was some sort of anorexic with all these salads and low calorie food, although it has to be said, some of the foods are higher in calories, so this helps balance things out. I did wonder how on earth a salad alone could fill me up when I normally have bread with it and a pudding afterwards, but it did!

Photo above: Left: a size 16 outfit I bought for going out at Christmas. Only the shoes (not shown) now fit. Right: a dress I am now able to wear.

I had one occasion of craving carbohydrates, and for the first three or four days, felt lethargic in the evenings, but not cripplingly so – often I would have ironing to do or have a bit of knitting or something on the go, but on these three days I didn’t quite have the energy there. I had to get used to a new feeling, different from the usual one of being satisfied by a meal, to feeling as if I was on the verge of becoming hungry, but wasn’t actually just yet – and feeling like this most of the time, too. I wondered if I was actually getting enough to eat, although I guessed I would be alright because there were quite a few calories in the natural yoghurt and meat.

After the first few days, motivation wasn’t difficult because the weight just seemed to fall off without me being hungry, and my clothes fitted better. I did have occasional cravings, mainly close to mealtimes. Sometimes I would finish my meal and think “is that it?” But I kept reminding myself that it was worth it, and not just for the weight loss. I feel that I am retraining my eating habits, so as not to eat unless hungry, and have less of a sweet tooth.

I keep wondering what will happen when I finish it and the spectre of convenience food looms large again, and wondering how I can minimise my exposure to this, given that my family are so keen on it and my husband does the shopping as he has the car. Well, I will certainly keep on having porridge oats for breakfast, and perhaps not have any pudding (as I would probably find them too sweet anyway). Having had them all my life, I will probably have natural yoghurt instead. I can have a homemade vegetable soup or salad for lunch, and then there’s only the evening meal to worry about. I can probably get around this as I tend to eat at the same time as my son, before my husband arrives home. One sticky wicket is likely to be Saturday evening meals, and I can probably cope with an unhealthy meal once a week – that’s if the family don’t like any of the curries in the recipe book. The chicken korma wasn’t a hit with them. Sometimes we have stir fry, but unfortunately a lot of the sauces contain sugar as one of the main ingredients. I may need to make sugar free versions of foods I liked before, such as apple sauce, bread etc. as I don’t like things to be so sweet now. I have chosen to do without fruit until I reach my goal weight, and am taking a multivitamin. Holidays may also be a problem, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Above: Bras before and after - 40E top, 38D underneath. I know which I prefer.

I wasn’t that overweight before and do not look that dramatically different. I therefore haven’t had a photo taken of me in my “fat” jeans holding the waistband out in front of me, as people so often do, but here are some of my clothes instead.

Improvements in my general health

I am now in my third week and would love to continue with this sort of healthy eating for ever really (with the odd treat), particularly as I have been so impressed by the effects on my general health, which I had previously thought was very good. Since being on the Harcombe diet, my eyesight has improved and I can now read size 8 font, which I couldn’t before, and indeed was sometimes struggling with 10. My hair has become thicker, and seems to be growing faster and my digestion seems somehow calmer. Every few days, I seem to notice some aspect of my health is better and I would love to hold onto these improvements. I’m keen to continue to find out what the long term effects would be. I feel as if weight is now something that can be controlled, in spite of Government policies and pressures on the consumer from food manufacturers and supermarkets and so forth. Porridge will be a helpful weapon in staying slim because I can get four hours out of it before needing to eat again. I used to have a bowl of Harvest Crunch type cereal, but I would only last until about 10.30, and if I wanted to last until 1 pm, I had to have a piece of toast with it. I think the sugar in it must have caused this, as the hunger would come on quite suddenly. With porridge, it comes on more slowly and gently, which is a big improvement.

Bin benefits

Yes, even our wheelie bin has felt the benefit, as there is less going into it while we are off processed food. We only have our rubbish collected every two weeks, I would often have a backlog of rubbish, but thankfully no longer.

Obstacles to overcome

“Unpalatability”
Some of the foods in the diet might not be not to some people’s taste, at least to begin with. See above for my views on this. I have to say that I've been on calorie controlled diets where the food is delicious but too damn slow getting the puddin' shifted. Give me health foods over this any day.

Busy lives - I don’t have a full time job, and I wonder how others who do would fit all the cooking in, if they are run off their feet. What I can say is that at least two healthy meals a day are fairly easily achievable - porridge oats or bacon and egg for breakfast and (say) vegetable soup for evening meal, probably with some brown bread if you need a bit more, which you can cook in batches then warm up. Making a batch of Zoe’s vegetable hotpot takes about an hour, and the curries in her recipes have one base that you could spend a further hour a week at a weekend making. This just leaves lunchtime, for which you could have a salad with meat or fish, either home- made or bought.

Realistically, you do need to allow at least a couple of hours a week for cooking with this diet.

To be honest, a ready made curry meal for two or three from Tescos involves some messing about, standing by the oven and putting another tray of food in every few minutes. You might almost as well go for a homemade option.

Low incomes - People on low incomes often have difficulty in eating a good diet. I think they could “do” the Harcombe diet but not all the recipes, as some of the ingredients, like quinoa are expensive or difficult to buy. A poor person could have porridge for breakfast (which is very cheap, especially made with water), and buy a “stew pack” of mixed fresh vegetables to make vegetable soup from for the week, and seek out the cheapest options salad-wise. Anyone poor with a garden could grow a few veg and if they have a freezer, freeze them. A well managed veg plot can cope with more than one crop per year of some veg. If they only have a windowsill, they could grow herbs, and if all else fails, bean sprouts in a jar. They need to access to shops selling fresh food, if this isn’t possible, perhaps food shopping via the internet is an alternative or we need a better solution. The liver and bacon in phase 1 is a cheap and very nutritious meal, although I remember not liking this sort of thing when I was a child, and it wasn’t any better this time. Porridge, liver and beansprouts have formed the basis of meals for myself at times in my younger days when I was hard up – and I was slim and healthy then.

Poorer people with school age children who qualify for free school meals (in the UK) are probably best to let them have them, rather than sandwiches, which often happens because of the worry about the “stigma” of getting free meals. My son is school age, and has school dinners which we pay for, as this seemed to be the healthiest option, but most other kids seem to have a packed lunch. It is almost like a status symbol for your child to have school dinners that you pay for yourself. I do, however, have to find the correct change every week, and it would be helpful if our local council could somehow let us pay electronically, then they might get a higher take up rate (which I know they are keen to increase).

I was worried about odours from all the onion and garlic I was eating, but luckily I remembered a tip about eating a sprig of parsley afterwards, and this probably helped. A quick internet search also found that cleaning your teeth, eating a slice of lemon, green tea or other herbs are helpful (haven’t tried these).

The diet has been compared with the South Beach diet. There do seem to be quite a few similarities. You aren’t encouraged to snack on the Harcombe diet, however, which must surely help with weight loss.

The recipe book has plenty of recipes for all tastes, and there should be something for most people in it. Some of the ingredients are difficult to obtain or expensive, but there are lots that are cheap too. I used it to make a few things for the family, which I then adapted to be non-diet, for example rice and naan bread with the curry, pasta with the meatballs.

Zoe is a qualified nutritionist as well as this she has a degree in maths and economics, and does seem to “know her onions” (not to mention her peppers, carrots, sweet corn and sprouts)! As I say, the evidence in her Obesity book is very convincing, and you get a sort of condensed version of that book at the beginning of the diet one, but if you are an enthusiast, read both. At the beginning of one of her books, she jokes that she’d like to bring about world peace as her next challenge. As a fellow countrywoman, I would add a request that she also sort out the world economy too, especially the UK, where we both live.

For further information, here is a link to her website: http://theharcombediet.com/. There is a forum for users of the diet, where they can exchange tips and support one another.

I will keep you updated as to how I get on with this way of eating, and whether the weight stays off and I remain as healthy as I have become. In the meantime, I would recommend this diet not only to people who are overweight but also phase 3 to those who aren’t but want to become healthier.

Tackling Weight Problems 1

2013-01-15T06:18:00.002-08:00

I am NOT going to look like this, even if I can live 5% longer

I know I said I wasn’t going to update this blog again, but I’ve kept dancing (to paraphrase Bruce Forsyth of “Strictly Come Dancing” fame). There are also some books I wanted to recommend from the weight loss point of view. Although not about belly dancing, it might appeal to those of you wanting to lose a little bit of post Christmas flab. This post is long, and will therefore be over two weeks – this week and next.

I am also hoping soon to post a video of myself belly dancing, for which I’ve set aside a day later this week.

As some of you may remember, I am not a fan of diets, but recently one came in pretty handy when I wanted to get rid of the post Christmas “podge”. Whilst at the library, I picked up “The Obesity Epidemic” by Zoe Harcombe, just out of interest and to pass a bit of time. I’m not obese myself, but I see a lot of people around who are, and I have heard that the majority of people in my country are overweight, and that there are many causes too. Although many of us lead more sedentary lives than in the past, another prime culprit must be what’s on our plates.

In her book, Zoe basically blows some big holes in some scientific theories about diet, and does comprehensive demolition jobs on others. She argues that one calorie is not the same as another, and that carbohydrate will tend to make you fat, due to the pancreas releasing insulin, which she says tends to cause weight gain. She explains in more detail the two types of diabetes and how they relate to carbohydrate consumption and weight. She is not a great believer in exercise to keep your weight down and would undoubtedly be of the opinion that you would have to do an awful lot of belly dancing to lose any weight. “The Obesity Epidemic” is not light reading, and I occasionally found it difficult to understand . I would, however, recommend it to anyone with an interest in their own health or that of others.

Like me, she lives in England, and I really wish all those in power, such as Andrew Lansley, our health minister, would pay some attention to what she has to say. The government has been throwing a lot of money at the obesity problem - for example the Change 4 Life programme was costing millions and it will cost a whole lot more for the Health Service if what’s done doesn’t work. Some parts of the media have criticised the campaign, but I think at least it is a start. I feel that the success or failure of this kind of thing has to be judged long term, and research into peoples’ health and diet needs to be ongoing.

Just before writing this, some American research came out showing that people who are borderline obese can live 5% longer than those of normal weight. Unfortunately, people who are this size must be risking a lot of (often serious) health problems, on top of looking less attractive than they could. For these reasons, I feel that staying within the recommended BMI guidelines is the best choice for me.

A separate issue for EU residents (I don’t think Zoe mentions this) is the Common Agricultural policy, in place since the 1970s. Farmers produce too much sugar and are paid EU subsidies for this, so as to keep people in jobs and preserve rural heritage. Unfortunately this sugar tends to find its way into much of our convenience food, as a cheap ingredient. This together with the fact that so many people are juggling with work, study, childcare or all three, and don’t have time to cook, you have a perfect recipe (no pun intended) for people to gain weight. This is probably particularly so in the UK, as we tend to have sandwiches at lunchtime if we are at work or school, and as Zoe says in her diet book, bread is carbohydrate, which tends to make you put on weight. Is it beyond the bounds of possibility that farmers could be subsidised to grow something healthier than sugar, so that we could have the best of both worlds? So many farmers seem to live in poverty anyway – surely there needs to be a better way all round.

I will write a further post about the other books and how I got on with the other books next week. I hope that my own experience will prove useful to anyone wanting to reduce their weight.

The Last Post

2012-07-03T03:13:00.000-07:00

One final post to let you all know that I won’t be updating this blog any longer. You can, however, follow the link to my other two blogs, or click the archives to see some of my earlier posts on this blog. This blog was published on Kindle, and I’ve requested it to be removed from there, which will take about 2-3 days. Thank you to those of you who have enjoyed reading and commenting.

How I am not going to look

2012-06-22T03:05:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know I haven't quite got the door frame right - but it was my first go.

Some one at the art group I go to told me it gets harder to keep your weight down as you get older, and dieting becomes less effective. Yet another thing for me to look forward to (gloom). All I can say is that I make sure I have my five portions of fruit and veg every day, try to steer away from unnecessary calories (wine, cream etc) and my feet are testament to the fact that I walk everywhere. The lower half of me is relatively thin because of this, but the middle bit does tend to splodge out at times. My arms aren’t as slim as I would like, which isn’t fair, as I carry a lot of shopping around. All the same, I am one of the slimmest people I know at the moment.

Thankfully, as well as belly dancing I have technology on my side, as I am also learning to edit photos.

Following on from my previous post about how all cameras ought to have an “autoslim” option, until the day they do, I have been learning to use Gimp, which is similar to Photoshop, but free.
Look closely at these “before” and “after” photos of me, and you can see a definite difference. This photo needed editing anyway, to get rid of the reflections from the camera flash in the mirror, but I decided to slim myself down a bit as well. I’ve been using “Gimp 2 for Photographers” by Klaus GoeIker, and from there, it seems the only way of making people look thinner on photos is to “shave” a bit off either side of them. I have begun to think that editing photos could become a bit addictive. Although I’ve narrowed my waist down in the second photo, doing this makes my bum stick out more. You can see why people get hooked on having plastic surgery – if you have one thing put right, it shows other things up.

Living where I do in the Midlands, the weather doesn’t exactly help either. I used to live in the South East and people seemed much more health conscious and image conscious there, but it is a couple of degrees warmer all the time, and there's probably less rain, which tends to make it easier to exercise. When I went to Iceland once (the country not the shop), I noticed that people seemed more overweight than English people – it must be even more difficult to exercise there, as you would really be up against it with the snow and ice.

Even one short session of belly dancing seems to help pull things in a bit around my middle, as does swimming. With either of these forms of exercise, I notice the difference when I put my jeans on the following day. And of course, it can all be done indoors, so the weather isn’t a problem.

Can my son please note I do not want to end up looking like this
even if I end up in a old people's home

I have always been determined not to let myself go as I get older, and here’s a website that’s aimed at women who feel the same way: http://www.fabulousafter40.com/. Well worth a look if you are bothered about how you look, particularly the post on 10 things to avoid doing as you get older. Any teenagers reader, titter ye not as you will have this problem eventually. Things like finding the right clothes can be a bit of a minefield, it is so easy to go wrong. I’d like to see more about looking good if you are at home or just looking presentable to drop the kid off at school as well as looking smart to go out. Here we have some photos of female celebrities over 40 who are aging well, including “that” photo of Helen Mirren in a bikini, and one of Brooke Shields, who I thought was a couple of years older than the website says she is, although I have to say her hair looks beautiful. http://www.fabulousafter40.com/should-you-follow-fashion-rules/. I don’t think I could manage to get mine looking like that in time for the morning school run, though.

Camera Perils

2012-05-22T03:42:00.000-07:00

Worse things happen at sea, I suppose
I have got a bit of a reflection on the right, but haven't found out how to take that out yet.

Some years ago, I remember photographing mountains on a trip to Switzerland and being disappointed with how much flatter they appeared on the photos, compared with real life. Similarly, I have been trying to find a photo to go with this month’s update, but I am beginning to get to that age where I am being a bit funny about having my photo taken. Given all the technological advances in recent years, why is it that the camera still puts 7lbs on me? Shouldn’t manufacturers have an “autoslim” option on cameras? And what about an ”age compensate” as well? So many people over the age of 40 make an effort with their appearance and look OK in real life, and don’t want to look ancient or fat on photos. I know there is Photoshop, but it would be nice to look good on a photo to begin with. I am also wondering why I haven't yet got a robot to do the household chores, but perhaps doing that helps keep me toned up.

Yes I know I have missed the "De" out of Cinco De Mayo
But Kizzie looks as if she is performing an elaborate and seductive dance move
Good thing she's had her little "op"

On a happier note, I have recently discovered “Gimp”, which apparently does a lot of the same things as Photoshop. I managed to create a small picture of our cat with a cactus for Cinco De Mayo day recently, so perhaps Gimp might be my saving grace.

Moan out of the way. After watching the “Horizon” documentary, with its new research on short sharp exercise, I decided to try the equivalent thing with shimmies and hip circles and figure of eights. It hasn’t really worked, but this may be more to do with me having too much chocolate last week. Still, I am going to keep it up, and will let you know what the results are. The lower half of me tends to stay slimmer because I walk everywhere, but the top half probably needs a bit of attention. This week, I am hoping that an afternoon weeding in the garden, followed by ironing, will have helped. Otherwise some short sharp snake arm movements might do the trick.

I see that Katherine Jenkins recently picked up an injury performing a belly dancing style salsa routine on Dancing With The Stars. I watched this video and felt quite sorry for her – she is obviously in pain at the end. The dancing, however, was very good and she got good marks for it. Also, her injury only seems to have been mild and she has been able to continue in the competition. Here’s a link to the video: http://www.opposingviews.com/i/entertainment/video-dancing-stars-recap-katherine-jenkins-injured. Someone has made a comment that her ex-fiancee, Gethin Jones, who competed on Strictly Come Dancing, should see her on this, as he would wish he was still with her.

From the dance point of view, although I myself am not an expert on the type of dance she's doing, It seems to me most unusual to see anything like belly dancing done with a partner, particularly a man.

Easiest And Hardest

2012-04-22T00:00:00.000-07:00

Figure of eight with shimmy - it can be done the other way round too.

I have often found symmetrical movements are easier to perform than when one side of the body is doing something completely different to the other.

Beginning with the arms, making my arms ascend and descend together in a graceful way was an easy thing to do. Snake arms took a bit longer to learn, particularly getting my elbow to go up first. It is as if non-symmetrical movements are an unnatural thing for the muscles to learn.

Snake arms

Small hip circles were easy to learn, especially as I put my hands on my hips so to help me feel the movement. Large circles were a natural follow-on, as was the horizontal figure of eight, then the vertical one. There are two types of shimmy, the traditional one, where you stand with your legs together and move your knees back and forward to make your hips bounce, and the Egyptian shimmy, which is moving your hips horizontally back and forth. I chose the second one and found it easy to learn, but difficult to do for more than a few seconds until I’d had more practice. Once I was able to do all of these, I combined a shimmy with the circles and figures of eight to create a “layered movement”, which looked more interesting.

Camel/body undulation type movements have always proved more difficult, and I had to do these lying down at first so that I could feel the movement. Luckily, I already knew how to do a movement called a “body ripple”, which mainly uses the back, and this helped. I still find it harder to do a downwards undulation than one going upwards.

Twirls tend to be difficult for me because our living room is carpeted. We have a conservatory outside of it, and I can do twirls in there, as long as I don’t tread on the cat, whose bedroom it is. The main problem is not being able to see myself. The living room is at the back of the house has large sliding doors which act like mirrors at night, but they don’t do the same thing from the conservatory.

Head slide - difficult to do well

Sometimes I can do a movement but not very well – my head circles and slides aren’t as smooth as I’d like. I think they are worth trying to do, though, because they help tone my neck up. Barrel turns are something I’ve always found impossible as well. Jenna, in one of her CDs tells you to practice in a small space to help get the arms right, but I can’t get them right whatever size of space I’m in.

Hooping for improvement

2012-03-22T06:44:00.001-07:00

I'm not letting the little lad anywhere near this one.

Since last time, I’ve replaced my hula hoop with a new one. I decided on a larger one than previously, because I remember having a big and a small hoop when I was a youngster and the bigger one was always easier to keep up. As well as this, I’ve tried Jade Dancer’s tip of making a sort of back and forth movement rather than circling my hips, either one of these things, or a combination of both, have helped me keep the hoop up longer. I tend to lose momentum after a while, and I wonder if a heavier hoop would be better, if there is such a thing.

I was interested to watch the BBC2 “Horizon ” programme “The Truth about exercise”. The latest research done by Nottingham University, showed that everyone responds differently to exercise, some far better or worse than others. This is determined by a person’s genes and means that the Government guidelines, which are a “one size fits all” – 150 minutes per week exercise for everyone – will not benefit everyone.

Clipart from: http://www.shira.net/clip.htm

The programme’s presenter, Michael Mosley, worked with Birmingham and Nottingham universities as he was prescribed and tried short bursts (3 minutes) of intense exercise three times a week. He had tests at the beginning and end of the trial to see how effectively his body used insulin – and found that these short bursts had been beneficial. Of course, belly dancing isn’t as vigorous an exercise as cycling at full speed on an exercise bike, but I wonder whether the same things apply. I would like to have seen them experiment with different types of exercise – swimming, running, and maybe even some sort of dance (even if it looked silly), and find out what the results were from each. Different types of exercise suit different people and the time spent could be adjusted accordingly. This link to the Guardian website has a pithy review of the programme http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2012/feb/28/horizon-the-truth-about-exercise.

What I would have liked to have known, but no one seemed to have researched, is what effect age has on exercise. Although the researchers classified Michael Mosley as being genetically predisposed to respond poorly to exercise, I did wonder whether his age wasn’t helping either – he doesn't look like a spring chicken, and has grown up children. My nagging suspicion is that younger people somehow respond better to exercise. I’d like to know how biological slowdown affects the body’s response to exercise. I wonder if anyone knows.

http://www.shira.net/clip.htm

I am glad that the present research is being done at least, but it seems to me that more must done to confirm or refute these findings, particularly as at a time of a threatened “obesity epidemic” in our country.

One other thing that does seem to happen with age is that the body becomes less flexible. From my own experience, I have found that yoga and belly dancing can help stop this getting worse, if not actually improve things.

http://www.shira.net/clip.htm

Anyway, must go now - time for my three minutes of intense shimmying ….

Zenne Dancer - and a broken hoop

2012-02-22T03:50:00.000-08:00

An unlikely subject for a new film, “Zenne Dancer” is about a gay Turkish belly dancer, who is killed by his own father in a so-called“honour killing” – because the father could not accept him being gay. The background to this is that the film makers were filming male belly dancers in Turkey for a documentary in 2008, when they heard that one of these dancers (who was also a physics student) had been killed. The father of that dancer has been on the run ever since this happened.

Zenne is the Turkish word for male belly dancer, and the film, although only shown in Turkey so far, has won several awards, and the makers are now looking for a wider audience, and are hoping that it will help encourage tolerance of people of different sexual orientations. Let us hope so –intolerance plus honour killings are not a good combination. Eurasianet.org has more details about this story, which is certainly something a little different from the normally innocuous world of middle Eastern dancing. http://www.eurasianet.org/node/64968. The CNN website also has an excerpt from the film and interviews with the directors: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/13/world/europe/turkey-gay-killing/index.html. I read somewhere that male belly dancing is quite different from the female type, and from what you can see at the beginning of this clip, this does indeed seem to be the case.

One duffed up hoop

Meanwhile, in a quiet corner of North-East Derbyshire and on a more down to earth note ……

I myself have had to scrap my hula hoop as my little lad bent it so that it became unusable. I am stopping it out of his pocket money (it didn’t cost much), but in the meantime, I have had a helpful comment from Jade, of http://jadedancer.com/ blog, who tells me that I can help keep my hoop moving round my waist by just moving my body forwards and backwards rather than trying to go in a circle. Thank you, Jade, and I will be trying that myself, once I get sorted out with a new hoop (it doesn’t work with a bent one).

New skirt

2012-01-22T01:24:00.000-08:00

Yes I know - it needs ironing

You may remember I started making a turquoise belly dancing skirt begun a few months back, and I thought you might like to see how it looks now. You might also recall that I was making it as a “gored” skirt i.e. made from triangles, aiming for a flattering fit and freedom of movement. Here we are then!

But it's a good match for the halterneck top I've got

I might add some decoration to it, perhaps around the hem, as it will be worn with a hip scarf anyway, so won’t look completely plain. The halter neck top I am wearing with it has padding which I might remove, although it means I will have to cut the top open on the inside then resew it. I don’t know why manufacturers put padding into bras and tops aimed at those of us who already have a lot of natural “padding” up top.

In the news recently has been an attempt at the world shimmying record. It had previously stood at one hour, but Melanie White, of Broulee, New South Wales, Australia, shimmied for three hours, with a panel of witnesses to watch the attempt. Unfortunately, the video camera played up so she was unable to claim the record, but she hopes to give it another try soon. She did at least raise some money for charity, and the community art event in her home town where she performed benefitted from (apparently) three times as many extra visitors that day. Here’s hoping she can achieve that record next time round. She said her feet got sore then her muscles started to tighten up, but she had to try and remember to stay relaxed. Practising for this event must have been great for her waistline.

Purely in the interests of research, I decided to try it and see how long I could shimmy for, but only managed 5 minutes – more practice needed.

I have bought myself a hula hoop, to help develop my waist muscles. I used to be able to keep up “hooping” it around my waist for quite some time, but tried it again recently and couldn’t do it. I’ve had a couple of goes this week, and am gradually re-learning the skill, but the hoop seems to lose momentum rather quickly. What I used to find was that a larger hoop was a lot easier to keep up than a smaller one, and perhaps I just need a bigger hoop! At any rate, my son, who likes astronomy, uses this one as a toy to show the orbit of his toy planets.

An English Chez Ali?

2011-12-21T14:01:00.000-08:00

Deja Vu? But with a Yorkshire Accent (awreeet me duck!)

After last month’s post mentioned Chez Ali, in Marrakech, my nearest and dearest had the good fortune for his work party to be held by “Best Parties Ever”, who hosted a Moroccan themed night at Ponds Forge centre, Sheffield. Ponds Forge is a sports centre with nightclub and other rooms above – some of which are very large. The evening featured a camel rodeo - a sort of automated bucking bronco that goes faster and soon threw one of his colleagues off, dodgems, and aerial acrobats, the type that wind fabric round their arms and legs and do turns and somersaults in mid air.

It had barely started here, but it gradually went faster and faster ...

All in all, a bit like an English Chez Ali. The acrobats replaced the advertised stilt walking belly dancers. I had been wondering what these would be like, and how many moves they would be able to do on stilts. Even a ommi might prove difficult if you got slightly out of balance at a greater height than your normal one.

... and round and faster and - oops! there he goes ...

Comparing it with the belly dancing robot of a few weeks ago, I wonder which would be the more achievable, balance-wise. I reckon a human on stilts would be able to achieve do better because we are accustomed to having to balance, whereas a robot isn’t. I also wonder which would come first, the stilt walking or the belly dancing – I suspect the stilt walking would, because I can imagine a stilt walker wanting to add interest to their act by belly dancing. However, someone who is already belly dancer might be too worried about falling off stilts to want to learn stilt walking. I might be wrong, of course. http://www.bestpartiesever.com/christmas-parties/christmas-parties-sheffield/christmas-parties-Sheffield_intro.html

I would have loved to have featured a photo of those stilt walking belly dancers. But sadly ...

I’ll leave you to ponder that one, while on a slightly more serious note, over on Yahoo Questions, I see someone has been having the usual debate about the way that belly dancing can sometimes be viewed as a bit of a seedy occupation.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20111209095427AA0nTpr

What I would say is that it is fun, and keeps you fit, and yes it looks sexy, but then so do a lot of other things. Take swimming for example, an innocent enough occupation, but you can look sexy if you happen also to look good in your swimsuit. Surely no parent is going to stop their teenage child going swimming for this reason, but perhaps they might not want the child to belly dance.
I’d never heard of Katrina Kaif, but here she is on a website, the subject of a debate as to whether her belly dancing style top and indeed bottom (which you can’t see) is in bad taste. I think she looks very attractive. Having said that, you would not want to go wearing that sort of thing around Sainsburys, unless it was a branch at the seaside, and during a heatwave. Ms Kaif obviously doesn’t live in England as it is sub-zero here at the moment, which is why wearing skimpy outfits in winter here is something that isn’t often seen. Except, apparently in the city of Hull, at weekends, where the youngster routinely go out for the evening in minimal clothing in the middle of winter. http://www.bollywoodlife.com/news-gossip/do-you-think-katrina-kaifs-latest-sizzler-chikni-chameli-is-in-bad-taste/

If something sounds too good to be true, so often it is. I decided to put this principle to the test on http://www.unique-bodyweight-exercises.com/splits.html where there is an article on learning to do the splits. This would be an impressive little move to incorporate into my routine. But I’d once heard that you had to learn to do the splits by the age of five or you would no longer be flexible enough. Unfortunately, I expect most five year olds are unaware this and some of them might want to be able to learn it when they are older, by which time it is too late. Or is it? According to this guide, anyone of any age, regardless of flexibility, who can do a deep lunge can learn to do the splits too, and not only that, to do it in six weeks.

After following these instructions for not only six weeks but several months, long after progress had stalled, and I’d tried the forced relaxation or “take no prisoners” (which I thought meant taking an excessively aggressive approach), I have to report that, no,sadly it didn’t work for me. I was perhaps a bit more flexible in the lower body than I had been before, but that was it. Since stopping the exercises, I am back to my normal inflexible self.

I wonder if I had continued for longer, would I have got there in the end – have any readers been able to achieve the splits, lateral or front or whatever? I wonder what the maximum age actually is. It must surely be something below your 40s. Or perhaps there are old age pensioners out there who have achieved it? My own experience has been that flexibility is something that’s best achieved early in life but I’d love to be proved wrong. One example is that I can sit cross legged but my mother in law can’t. It was something I learnt at infant school – I remember us all having our legs put in the cross-legged position when we went into our first assembly. Another is that I can do a yoga position where you reach your right hand over your shoulder and touch your other hand which reaches up your back. I have always been able to do it on one side but not on the other. I remember forcing myself to reach far enough on one side at a young age, which hurt, but after that I was able to achieve it – but on that side only, and I still can’t on the other! If any readers would like to leave a comment on their experience of flexibility and age, I might return to this subject again in the New Year.

It only remains to wish all readers a happy, Merry or white Christmas (you choose). See you again in January.

Chez Ali

2011-11-22T05:05:00.000-08:00

I hope Ali doesn't mind me putting a copy of his leaflet and website on the web.
I am, however, giving him a favourable mention below.

While I was in Morocco around 10 years ago, on the trip that inspired me to start belly dancing, I was handed a leaflet about “Chez Ali”. Chez Ali is an acrobatic horsey arena show for tourists, with banqueting in “caidal” tents (aka marquees). I didn’t go while I was there, even though I was assured by the tour operator that it was a marvellous evening not to be missed. I was travelling on my own and didn’t feel safe out at night. In any case I was on half board, so didn’t need a banquet, and didn’t want to put weight on by overeating.

Ali's website - I wasn't able to watch the videos but there are some good pictures

I found the leaflet recently and noticed a photo of a belly dancer. There’s no mention of her having her own part in the show so perhaps she entertained people while they had their meals. There’s also an arial photo of the complex, with labels which include the arena, overnight accommodation, main entrance, the car park, stables, kitchens and catering, workshop and administration blocks, as well as “visit of the spit roasted lamb ovens” (it loses something in translation there).

I could look just like this if I keep practising

I remember how exuberant the Moroccan people were, especially when they were trying to sell you something, and it makes me wish there was something like this in England. Sadly, I can hardly see out of the window for the fog just now, and it is probably just too cold and damp to get that authentic feel. Shame. At the bottom of the leaflet is the legend “25 ans” French for 25 years. That was 10 years ago, and their website still exists, so they have probably been going for 35 years.

I have found Ali’s website at: http://www.chezalimarrakech.com/picture-video.html , and he can even lay on transport from where you are staying. Unfortunately, I don’t think this would extend to the East Midlands ….

I have been learning to do an “ommi”. Our DVD player recently packed in, and until I am better acquainted with its replacement, I have reverted to one of my trusty belly dancing books and am proceeding thus:

- Feet together, bend left knee only and let your right hip go out to the side (my left hip is going out, so I’m off to a good start here).

- Straighten both legs and pull in the lower abs so your pelvis tucks under you (yes - just).

- Bend the right knee so the left hip pushes out to the left side (no, my right hip is sticking out. Perhaps there’s something wrong with me).

- Bend both knees so the pelvis is no longer tucked (now I have got my pelvis under me as if tucked in).

- Repeat to music (my hips seems to be moving in a figure of eight,I have no idea whether this is right or not but somehow it still looks sexy).

As with a lot of things in belly dancing, it doesn’t half feel funny, but trust me, it does look quite sexy, even if you are a beginner.

All the hip movements seem to help loosen my back up if I have been sitting down, so there must be some benefit to all this.

Onwards and upwards (or perhaps in a figure of eight).

Happy, healthy and fun

2011-10-22T08:05:00.000-07:00

First of all, apologies to those of you who have been waiting for my next update, particularly anyone reading this via Kindle. Unfortunately, the Amazon form “blog post frequency” section does not have an option for me to say I am updating this blog every month now, but I’ve added this information to the blog description and this is how often it will be from now on.

Belly dancing and stress

I have had plenty of jobs where I have been given too much to do, or had to do lots of work very urgently, that also has to be perfect. I have tended not to have much control over how I do the job or what will happen next. I am therefore familiar with dealing with stress. Some of the Belly dancing books I have been reading tell me that it helps keep your weight down, and is good for stress, and many other health problems.

I have been particularly busy the past few weeks, with no chance to do any dancing. I’d felt stressed and a bit run down at times. I wanted to relax, but felt too keyed up. I found the a website “helpguide.org” website had some useful information on this problem, particularly this link – it tells you how best to deal with different types of stress. http://helpguide.org/mental/stress_relief_meditation_yoga_relaxation.htm

Three types of stress were listed under headings of under overexcited, underexcited and frozen (like being on the brake and accelerator at the same time). I knew I wasn’t depressed, and I’d already tried meditation but it wasn’t working. I tried the suggestions under “frozen”, which were things like power yoga, meditative walking and so on, whereby there is some exercise but the mind is allowed some breathing space. I spent a morning doing filing, and making to do lists, as I find doing this relaxing. As I listened to music, a Eureka moment occurred when I realised belly dancing would probably help as it involves movement but helps you unwind as it is fun, so I tried this, and bingo! Shortly afterwards, I felt better and have continued to improve since. N.B. I am using other ways of fighting stress as well as belly dancing.

Toned and trim

Hats off to Jenna

Many videos and TV programmes about belly dancing seem to put a lot of emphasis on the toning and weight loss benefits, but sometimes I feel that they do this at the expense of showing you the proper technique. I remember one instructor saying “come on, it’s a fat burner!”, whilst doing hip drops, and I just couldn’t seem to do it! Once I used Jenna’s DVD, “Belly Dance Basics”, I soon found out I was supposed to keep my knees looser, otherwise the hip drop just would not work. Some TV instructors cover up their legs and hips with skirts, so as to look glamorous and authentic, which does not help either.

My own experience of belly dancing is that I find it difficult to fit in a decent amount of time for it during the week, and instead I usually do a bit while I am cooking the dinner, for example. Five minutes a day helps give me a more defined waist, but without it, I have a “straight down” sort of middle. If I had more time or was able to get to a class, I might actually lose weight too – but I am happy with the weight I am.

"Them there" weight charts (as we would say locally)

Weight charts mostly seem to give people the impression that they are more overweight than they actually are. Most do not take into account your age, which seems odd as most people gain a bit as they get older. Also, nearly all information on weight loss also seems to be aimed at women, which seems to be outdated as I meet many men who would like to look better or be healthier too.

The National Health Service (which is specific to the UK), has BMI/weight charts and a weight questionaire/calculator to help you find out whether you are over weight on its website at http://www.nhs.uk/Tools/Pages/Healthyweightcalculator.aspx. The first thing they ask is your gender and date of birth. I have tried this out myself and found that my weight is normal for my age. If you are at all worried about your weight, I strongly recommend it.

My experience has been that weight charts in magazines etc. would have me believe I am overweight, in spite of a fairly healthy diet and lifestyle – I had been wondering why I was classified slightly overweight when there wasn’t really anything more I could do.

Well, this is good news. Break out the Bolly and bring on the deep friend Mars Bars (only kidding!)

Incidentally, if you want healthier but delicious recipes, try the BBC Good Food website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/diets/healthy. Here’s a photo of their carrot and orange muffins with low fat icing made from low fat soft cheese and icing sugar, as made by me.

More next month. "Keep dancing"

Jewel

Skirting around the issue

2011-09-09T05:54:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have missed me over the past few days, I have been away on holiday. I’m afraid it wasn’t anywhere exotic or even anywhere with belly dancing (that I could find), but Tenby in Wales. If you want to read about the artistic aspects of it, see my art blog (link on the right).

School holidays, a pulled muscle and the trip away have put paid to any dancing recently, but I have made some progress with my turquoise skirt. I have created three panels, and am making a hem around the edge of each one. Once that is completed, join them all together at the sides, but leaving the bottom half open as a “vent”, I will put elastic along the top and see how it fits and hangs. I also have a strip of a futuristic looking silver metallic thing that I might use to cover the side seams.

After this, I can add other decorations.

Readers, I have an announcement to make. I will probably not be updating this blog every week any more. This is because one of my other blogs, the cat one, has proved quite popular and I would like to spend more time on it. I will still add to this one from time to time, when there is anything interesting to report. If you subscribe to the RSS feed, you will be sent an update free of charge whenever I do an update.

Whitwell or Worksop?

2011-08-22T05:33:00.000-07:00

Many thanks to Alex for her long comment, after my last post, helping to clarify my “fusion” confusion. She suggests watching a Rachel Brice video on You Tube as a good demonstration - so here is one, for anyone who is interested.

Last week, I was finally able to go to the Whitwell belly dancing class for the first time. I’d never before been a class I could get to in this area. 2 or 3 years ago, there had been one at Bolsover, our nearest town, but a combination of childcare and my husband’s shifts had stopped me going at that time, but things are easier now the little one is older.

Regular readers will remember that I had been forced to miss the first few weeks of the Whitwell class, as we were busy replacing our fence at home, or at least 60’ of its 79’ length. In particular, the heavy building materials, arriving unexpectedly five days early, stopped me going to the first class, as my help was needed to help move them to the back of our house. I e-mailed the suppliers but never got an apology or explanation from them. Fellow belly dancers who need to replace their garden fence, consider yourselves warned about Welch Fencing, particularly if you are about to start going to a class.

In the run up to this class, I made sure I practiced my moves - the other class members would undoubtedly be more advanced than me. I wondered what they would be like – perhaps younger? I put together a comfy but presentable looking outfit, and took along my hip scarf. Perhaps they would be older – I like it when I am the “baby”, as I am at art group. Finally, I double checked the dates on the calendar, as the class only ran on alternate weeks. My better half offered to give me a lift there, as it would have been an hour each way by bus. A 10 minute drive took us to an unassuming green building, where a notice board stood in for anything with the building’s name on. A quick drive round the village helped us to exclude the community centre and church hall, and a passing local confirmed that this was indeed the friendship hall – so far so good. As the car park in the small piece of land around it had a locked gate across its entrance, my husband and little one did a little circuit round the village to turn the car around, while I made sure the class was going ahead.

Luckily, dancing had made me flexible enough to climb through the gate, and I strolled over to one end to peer through the locked glass door – all was dark inside, not very promising so far. A glance through the windows at the other end – oh dear - confirmed that there was nobody there. It was a good size room with a wooden floor, no doubt ideal for doing turns and twirls. What a shame. Having to put the fence up had stopped me going any sooner. I won’t be able to get to any classes at Bolsover either if any ever run again, as there is no longer an adequate evening bus service.

When we arrived home, my DH did a web search to try and find a class in the area. Mansfield had one, but wasn’t safe to walk around in the evening, and there’s only one bus every two hours now. Chesterfield’s one was two buses away, but “Here we are, Belly dance Worksop”, he said, as a video of women circling and swaying in a large wooden-floored hall played on You Tube. Worksop is 8 miles away and has a regular bus service. While I wondered where on earth in Worksop such a large hall could be – never come across it before - DH noticed that the class teacher was male, “It’s a typo” he said, “It should be workshop really”. If there had been a dance class in Worksop, I am sure it would have been mentioned in the local paper, which we get every week. Sigh.

Ho hum. Back to the DVDs and books then.

Practising hard

2011-08-15T08:49:00.000-07:00

After a few weeks of summer holidays with the little one, I finally got chance to have a go at dancing again today. I have been trying to put together a routine, but following Jenna’s DVD, where she is so quick and precise in her movements, proved difficult, and I had to keep stopping it while I got the hang of what I was supposed to be doing! I then had to try and do what I’d learnt in time to a CD of bellydancing music. After about four goes, I roughly remembered what I was supposed to be doing and when, but was a long way off being as polished as I need to be to put anything on You Tube. I will just have to keep at it. No wonder contestants on Strictly complain about how “hard” it is learning new dances.

Almost as difficult was taking a photo of myself in my practice dance outfit, but here we are anyway.

What is Tribal Fusion Belly Dance?

2011-08-10T10:18:00.000-07:00

A completely gratuitous photo of me in a bikini trying to do an "Ursuala Andress" (readers of a certain age will know what I mean).

As regular readers will know, I finally discovered a belly dancing class within travelling distance of my home a few weeks ago, but, unfortunately, replacing our garden fence has been a priority, followed by my husband being on the wrong shift to enable him to look after our son, and topped off by some family medical problems (see cat blog). The upshot is that I haven’t been able to get to one yet. I really need a bit of glamour after all the heavy building work, and am hoping to pay them a visit this week. It is described as “tribal fusion belly dance” – but what is tribal fusion? I have been trying to find out.

Wikipedia has a definition, accompanied by a photo of a belly dancer with long silver wings and her arms up in the air. It seems to be a recent development, that has come about in the past 10 years and invented in America. It is can describe “any Americal Tribal Style dance form that incorporates the use of solo performances, utilises world music and involves the fusion of belly dance with any other kind of dance. Also, there are many sub-genres. To be honest, I am none the wiser, but am intrigued as to what I will find when I go along to this class.

Book Review - Belly Dance: The Dance of Mother Earth

2011-08-02T13:17:00.000-07:00

Just for a change, a book review this week. Belly dance The Dance of Mother Earth –by Tina Hobin

This book reminds me of “Grandmother’s secrets” in that it tells you about origins of the dance, and chapters include instructions on some basic steps, information on health benefits and music and instruments. The chapter on how to do the steps would have benefitted from some illustrations, and the book itself does not have many pictures in it, and would have been better if it had. Nevertheless, an interesting insight into belly dancing, and I agree with the author’s opinion that it does not require a perfect torso to look good and accomplished. Well at least let's hope so!

The future of belly dancing costumes?

2011-07-27T10:54:00.000-07:00

As I have been making and decorating my own costumes lately, it occurred to me that, what with all the beads, sequins and other decorations, I will have to hand wash them very carefully when they needed cleaning. But here’s an idea for a more minimalist costume you could perhaps just chuck in the washing machine. The Ubergizmo blog features rather a futuristic costume – no fuss, no dangly things to drop off in the washing machine: http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/07/electronic-belly-dance-costume/. Ubergizmo, by the way, is an interesting website featuring new technology from around the world including the latest developments in robots, gaming, computers etc.

On closer inspection, however, the decorations are actually sensors that send information on the body’s movements to a computer, resulting in sound processing based on the dancer’s predefined and prepared playlist. So you probably couldn’t put it in the washing machine after all. In fact, water might even affect its functioning! This link leads you to a video of the dancer demonstrating the costume. It does otherwise sound like a useful idea, although if you were too out of time, I suppose the music might sound a bit odd. The only answer, as always, has to be "practice makes perfect", or, as Jenna would say, "perfect practice makes perfect".

I had to miss this fortnight’s belly dancing class, due to putting up a rather large and long garden fence at home. I was, however, grateful for the stronger muscles that belly dancing has given me, which helped me with the heavy lifting I had to do. I hope to finally get along to the next one in about 9 days’ time, and can’t wait to report on it if I do.

Sadie and Kaya

2011-07-19T13:36:00.000-07:00

I’ve enjoyed watching most of the acts on America’s Got Talent (which is being shown in the UK at the moment), but I was, of course, most interested in the two belly dancers Sadie and Kaya. They gave a highly polished performance at audition and then used veils to dance with in a subsequent appearance - I've never actually seen this done, but it looked beautiful.

The two male judges in particular seemed very taken with them in the first round. The judges panel had the opportunity of putting them through to the quarter final. This was because the winning act from the final three acts of the evening was decided by the judges rather than the public’s vote – unlike all the others. Sadly, they chose a trick cyclist who had given up his day job to practise and did some impressive and dangerous stunts. Shame. I think the girls would have been worthy contenders.

A search of the internet found a mention of them in this belly dancing forum (image at top, link below), where none of the contributors were impressed with their performance – but I think you can see from the video linked from it, that it is not meant to be proper belly dancing, more erotic dancing with an Eastern theme, and probably better suited to the type of music they are dancing to. It is still well done all the same.

http://www.bellydanceforums.net/debate/11919-sadie-kaya-erotic-music-video.html

Urban Gypsies

2011-07-13T03:41:00.000-07:00

Instead of going to my class, I had to help my husband move lots of concrete slabs like this!

Or rural builders in my case! Sadly, I wasn’t able to get to the class I mentioned last week. We are doing some home improvements and a large batch of materials arrived without warning five days ahead of the delivery date, and I had to spend the whole of that evening moving them into the back garden. I hope to get to the next class on 21^st July.

I have also been unwell with a fluey bug for the last two days, so it has been difficult to do any dancing. I have, however, started work on my new skirt. Although it was originally going to have two panels, I think now that three or four might be better, and I’ve got plenty of material, so I should be able to do that.

I have been watching America’s Got Talent, which this year features a belly dancing duo. It is being shown in the UK at the moment. I have recorded each programme, and I am not up to their performance in Hollywood yet. I recall that there were some belly dancers “The Urban Gypsies” on Britain’s Got Talent last year. They got to the semi final. Here’s a link to an item about them on a UK belly dancing blog by Zehara: http://www.zehara.co.uk/britainsgottalent.htm

“Urban Gypsies” is a cool sounding name. It has made me wonder what I would call a dance troupe if I had one.

Yay! A local class

2011-07-05T13:58:00.000-07:00

And not before time, too!

A slightly early entry this week, as I try to catch up from my son’s school being closed due to INSET days and the teachers’ strike. I have some good news - at long last I will be able to go to a belly dancing class locally. There are buses to and from it, (as you can see from the timetable above) which is little short of a miracle in this area, and my better half is willing to babysit the little ‘un. As the class only runs on alternate weeks, hopefully there will not be too many clashes with his shift pattern. The class will be this Thursday, so I hope to report on it next time I update my blog.

Meanwhile, I have been progressing with my turquoise skirt, creating wide panels (as previously mentioned). It will take time to make, but will hopefully be worthwhile.

I have been watching America’s Got Talent, which is being shown in the UK at the moment, and there are two bellydancers who have made it through to the Hollywood stage of the competition. they looked stunning in silver outfits. They performed as a duet and were exactly in step with each other, and performed very professionally, or so I thought. I tried to spot what steps they were performing, something I often try, but find difficult to see when dancers wear long skirts.

I have found another useful website on belly dancing – this time “World Belly Dance”. As you can see, I have clicked many of the links shown on the page above (making them turn purple) – and very useful they are too. The site is at: http://www.worldbellydance.com/.