Finally Making Progress

I've been on this Dancing With Prospect Stars adventure for 8 weeks today.  Which puts me at roughly the half-way mark to the event. 

Here's the progress:

• 95% of the dance is choreographed.
• I can finally dance with a partner.
• I have incorporated strength training, cardio, and yoga.
• I have made good nutritional changes I can keep up with for life.
• I am down a TOTAL of 13.5 inches in my body (4" across my belly button alone). (And just last week I thought I would never get anything off my body. Goes to show how much the mindset affects everything - it was holding me back. Now I release all the weight that needs to go to be the size I want).
• I have $1,000 in sponsorship raised.
• I have a handful of people that are going to buy tickets.
• $100 in donations direct for Camp Quality. 

Still to go:

Only :20 seconds or so left to choreograph of the dance.

Another 4-6" off my waist.

Create a landing page to put all information in one spot for me easy for you to find.

$3,000 in sponsorship and ticket sales.

$19,900 in direct donations for Camp Quality. (Lofty goal, sure - but if everyone pitches in to help make it happen...it'll happen!)

That last one is THE most important.  This whole thing ultimately comes down to raising funds for this amazing organization - that's local.  Below is a quick video from me and Eddie Bobbitt, the Executive Director for Camp Quality Kentuckiana.  

Go here for the event page:  www.DancingForCampQuality.com, or here to donate or purchase tickets:  www.dancingwithprospectstars.org/2017/10/04/christy-smallwood/ , or contact me at Christy@EagleEyeExecutive.com to sponsor.  Donations are direct to Camp Quality - which means tax deductible!  And Sponsorship goes in your marketing dollars (which is also deductible).  And purchasing tickets...you won't regret any of it!

How To Practice For The Paso...

As most of you reading this know, I love a good superhero story.  Especially Wonder Woman.

So when the Dancing With Prospect Stars opportunity came up, I wanted to do something that would "represent."  I picked the Paso.  When people ask me what dance I'm doing and I tell them, I usually get this response:

via GIPHY

Yep.  It's an intense dance. Sharp moves. Fierce.  Very warrior-ish.  Total badass. Makes for a great superhero story.  Just what I wanted!  And boy, do I have my work cut out for me.  LOTS of practice is required.  Because, #1 - I want to LOOK fierce, not fluffy, and #2 - The whole point is to raise money for the kids at Camp Quality, and I can't let them down with a bad dance.

Practice.  Over-and-over-and-over again.  Not just rehearsal with my dance partner to learn routine and technique, but to work so much on my own that it becomes second nature. 

My home practices are filled with carrying weights while on my tip toes.  Lunges while wearing wedges.  Front kicks, pointing toes, squats, spinning, punching, step lunges while keeping my upper body from bouncing and staying balanced, and a handful of other moves that I will keep quiet for now. ;-) My dance partner, Damian, shows off a few moves for me to practice:

The other thing about practicing for the Paso is mindset and visualization.  Seriously.  No joke.  I am not only watching the Wonder Woman movie over-and-over, I picture myself as her doing the moves while practicing.  It inspires and motivates me - and scares the hell out of me.  Gal Gadot worked out for 6 hours a day for 6 months to do the Wonder Woman movie.  I have 13 weeks left.

I have a long way to go and a short time to get there (insert "East Bound and Down" music here). My practices need to be daily, not when I feel like it.  The practices need to be focused and intense.  And make me sweat a lot.  So far so good on that!

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Ready to sponsor the event or make a donation?  Go here to do that:  Dancing With Prospect Stars 

And So It Begins...

I've always loved dancing.  Never been great, but definitely something I enjoyed.  I taught and choreographed marching band for 16 years, I know a move or two and can be fairly coordinated and stay in time with the music.

But this is different. I'm different.  My body is different.

I've recently been chosen as one of the dancers for the Dancing With Prospect Stars charity event in February 2018.  Dancing with a partner.  In front of people.  In a skimpy outfit. What the hell am I thinking?!?  Oh yeah....the  kids.

My chosen charity to dance for is Camp Quality Kentuckiana, a year-round support for kids with cancer to go to camp to get to be kids again.  Seriously.  How could I not do something for that cause? These kids go through hell and back daily fighting for their lives.  Their childhoods consist of hospital stays, quarantines, diets of medicine and IVs, and little energy to even think about playing outside.  So when they get a chance to be around other kids- just like them - and play like "normal" kids do, there is a magical transformation that happens.  Some might even say it's SUPER!

So, for the next 15 weeks I will find sponsors, sell tickets, and raise money to support Camp Quality Kentuckiana - no question.  But personally...yikes.

This is me - now. 

I am roughly 100 pounds more than I should be, or really want to be.  Fitting into a skimpy dancing dress is...well, not a pretty sight NOW.  Please note before you get all, "you're not that fat - you're beautiful regardless" kind of jazz.  I'm very confident that I'm not ugly.  No worries there.  

This project is just as much a personal adventure of transformation as it is a cool fundraiser for those kids to go to camp. The weight has to come off - it's non-negotiable.  My movement habits are going to change.  I will be putting myself first in this and that means my calendar will change too.  My nutrition is pretty good - just my exercise routine is non-existent.

But I can't do it alone.  I need your help.  In all of it.  So be prepared to go on this journey with me! 

"Only those who risk going too far can find out how far they can go."  ~ T.S. Elliot

Why Fat Is My Comfort Zone

For as long as I can remember I have been fat. Before I could remember I was born a preemie at 4 pounds, 7 ounces.  Then one summer, as the story goes, I went to stay with my grandparents in Texas.  I left a skinny kid and came back fat.  I was 5.  

Throughout my adolescence - that amazing time of growing - my peers began to have input into my life as much as family.  My first recollection of a comment about how I looked was from a boy in 2nd Grade, "You are fat."  I told my teacher, she blew me off.  I was 6.

Fast forward to 6th grade.  I had been to a handful of schools by then, plenty of input from family and classmates and others about how I looked.  How I was "fat."  But at least by then I would also get, "beautiful eyes" once in awhile.

I learned very early on that being fat was neither popular or positive.  Funny thing though - I didn't eat all day and never move.  I ate normal and was plenty active.  My behaviors did not lean toward "fat."  I participated in every activity I could get a ride to in high school:  tennis, volleyball, marching band, dance team, drama, academic team, and probably a few other things I've forgotten.  

Looking back through my early days pictures NOW...I was certainly not fat.  Not SKINNY, but not FAT either.  But the label of "fat" is what stuck.  Even when I worked a summer job as a clerk in a law firm, a teenage girl from the country in the "big city" wearing a DRESS...and the Sr. Partner looked at me one day and said, "You'd be pretty if you weren't so fat."  Yes.  Said that to me.  I was 16.

My relationships with men was influenced by having this fat.  I adopted a belief that any man that really loved me would love ME regardless of the fat.  So any man that said I was fat was dismissed, and the ones that swore to me that I was beautiful regardless of my size were the ones I gave myself to.  And each one was a learning lesson to put it nicely.  My "first" left me, my ex-husband was abusive, and so on.  That belief that I could be beautiful regardless of my size was replaced with "I can be beautiful, fat, and useful."  Useful to men one way, and the rest of the world through the work I can accomplish.

I poured myself into doing good work, providing value to the world, discovering  and developing myself.  Through it all, I have kept my fat.  I have done some really cool things:  traveled to other countries doing mission work, spoke with high-ranking government officials about changing the world, and had dinner with Fortune 500 CEOs.  My fat came with me.  I have been to the proverbial hell and back with relationships of all kinds, and my fat came with me.

Why do I say fat is my comfort zone?  It's always been the buffer between the vulnerable me and what I can be for the world that needs what I can do in it.  It's been my protective force field to ward off negative.  My body literally goes into protective mode.  I can eat healthy, exercise, and watch what I do, and  yet...the fat is still there.

My fat is my comfort zone because it's all I've ever known.  I don't know how NOT to be fat.

My word for 2017 is"Beyond."  I now have to decide if I'm ready to go beyond that.  To take the mental and emotional steps necessary to live like I'm "fit" not "fat."  What will that look like?  Not sure, but I'm ready to design a new label for myself.