Beginning Ballet: Dancers - Can you be thin and healthy?

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Dancers - Can you be thin and healthy?

Dancers - Can you be thin and healthy?

A dancer can be thin and strong, and be eating enough to be healthy. A dancer can be thin and have the muscle mass needed to perform.

Processed carbohydrates make you fat, and offer no nutrition. Unprocessed fats, protein, complex carbohydrates (like vegetables and salads) DO NOT MAKE YOU FAT.

If you refrain from eating white breads (crackers, low-fat diet toast, sugar and fat-free cookies), pasta and potatoes, you train your body to burn fat.

If you eat empty, non-nutritional carbs, you train your body to burn all its available sugar, and to store fat.

It is a fact that artificial sweeteners make you crave sugar/carbs. So avoid them.

Believe it or not, the fattiest nuts, Macadamia, are the best snack. They are nutritious, and are low enough in carbs that eating them will will keep you burning fat!

Starving yourself, counting calories, fasting (omg) while doing dance training, or any other living activity, is obsessive and will not get you where you want to go.

If young dancers persist with these strange ideas of health, they will not dance.

Dancer's Snack Bag

Raw Fruits

Walnuts

Raw Almonds

Pumpkin Seeds

Yogurt

Granola

Hard Boiled Eggs

Vegetables

Tofu - Vegetarian

Seitan (Wheat Gluten)Vegetarian

Chicken or Turkey with out skin

Hummus with celery or carrots

Tahini

Bean Salads (Trader Joe’s has a great canned bean salad)

Bean and Rice Mixtures

Tabouleh

Buckwheat Noodles

Peanut Butter w/ Ezekiel Bread (by Food for Life) Apples/Bananas

Avocado

Salsa

Brown Rice Cakes

Cheese Cubes ( raw cheddar or jack cheese available at Whole Foods, Trader Joe's or Henry's. Also excellent are the Kosher Cheeses made with vegetable enzymes).

Water (of course) 8oz of fluid every 15 min or when breaks in class

Guidelines for protein

1.4-1.6g per kg body weight and 1/2 gram for every pound body weight

Experiencing Cramping? You might need Calcium, Potassium or Fluids.

Make sure to get your Calcium, Iron and B12!!

Eat Complex Carbs: 80%

vegetables

whole grain breads

wheat/rice pastas

bran and grain cereals

legumes

Simple Sugars: no more than 20%

fruits

milk (other than cow)

desserts and sweets

soft drinks

Probably best to lay off the last two foods; soda is poison!

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You know your a dancer when...

You dance down the hallway instead of walk.

You perform calmly before crowds yet suffer anxiety during school tests.

You are well coordinated in class but trip over your own feet walking.

A new leotard makes your whole day.

The top shelf in your closet is stuffed with your old costumes and dance shoes.

You can't sit still when you hear music.

You know a combo to every song that comes on the radio.

You noticed every mistake made in a dance movie or TV show.

You sit in a straddle when you are watching TV.

You have blisters on your feet for life.

Your body cracks loud enough to stop class but you don't even hear it.

Your feet have more blisters than your toes.

You point your toes even during sit ups.

Practice makes perfect isn’t just a saying but a way of life.

All your friends are eating dinner while you are in class.

You can't remember a time when your feet were soft and uncallused.

Every hard floor is a place for practicing.

You know that the frog is not an animal, but a stretch.

You sit up straight in your chair work/school.

You don't dance for a week and even your brother notices.

You have an entire drawer devoted to your old dance stuff.

You have washboard abs from those 200 sit ups before class every day.

You own 25 pairs of shoes and 20 of them are 4 dance.

You have bigger muscles than the guys @ school.

Everything you do has to do with dance.

You suddenly can't count past 8.

You look for good dance web sites whenever u r online.

You sit in a straddle on the floor comfortably.

Watching TV is not a time to relax but to stretch.

Before everything you do you say 5-6-7-8.

You laugh at a non-dancer when they say their feet hurt.

You defend dance with your life when friends make fun of it.

You point your toes during pull-ups in gym class.

You don't mind when people tell you your feet stink.

You have bobby pins on the floor around your whole house.

You do not think its weird when boys wear tights.

The first impression people have on you is dance.

You have tons of makeup but rarely where it to work/school.

You are at the studio more than you’re home.

Dance is life and the rest is just spare time.

Your vocabulary includes Band-Aids, wedgies, sweat, determination, and guts!

People mistake you for a rubber band.

You know most barres aren't in jails.

"Practice makes perfect.” isn't just a saying, but a way of life.

You have the ability to balance your body on five toes, yet cannot bend over to pick the clothes up off the floor of your room.

You walk with your toes first unconsciously.

You carry a bottle of nail polish around in your purse to stop those darn runs in your tights.

Your dad bought stock in BandAid.

You can learn the dances to music videos like that (snaps fingers).

All the things you get for Christmas relate to dance.

When you are walking, you count your steps but only go up to 8 and start all over again.

You never leave home with out your hair spray and bobby pins.

You have memorized every color tights of they sell at the local dancewear store.

You have ever fallen asleep in the splits.

You have ever said "200 sit-ups…no prob."

Glitter is imbedded in you skin for life.

Instead of calling rooms “rooms,” you call them "studios."

You consider tights a fashion accessory.

At the start of the new school year, the first pictures in your locker are the ones from dance camp.

You refer to half time of a football game as "intermission."

You have never heard of the words whining and wimps.

You seem at least 5 inches taller to everyone from walking on the balls of your feet all the time.

The "Simple Life" to you is dance practice 6 days a week, 8 hours a day.

You practice your leaps and turns down empty aisles in the supermarket.

You're more comfortable in dance clothes than in your regular clothes.

You don't worry what you look like in a bathing suit. It's just like your leotard, and you wear that every day.

Center stage isn't a place, it's home.

You own hair gel. LOTS of hair gel.

You have to ask, "Do you mean class class or dance class?"

"What's your studio?" is a conversation starter.

You use the time you're logging on the internet or booting up the computer to practice splits.

You don't understand when people don't know what plies are.

You scare people 'cause you kick so high.

When you hear music, you start counting in series of 8s.

You can whip up a ponytail in 5 seconds flat.

You walk around your house in releve to strengthen your calves.

Everyone at work/school knows you as…"You mean the one who can walk on her toes?"

Everyone at schools says, "You just have to dance in the talent show."

You’re glad rehearsals are indoors so they never get called off cause of bad weather.

You carry yourself like a Diva: back straight, head up, long back, shoulders straight