The Incredible Shrinking Woman

I'm off my diet. Actually, I have been for a while, but people who knew I went on this diet are still assuming that I'm still on it. Well, I'm still watching what I eat, so it's still a diet of sorts, but it's not strict as it was. If I want to eat several slices of salami, I go ahead and do so. I'm basically doing maintenance so that I don't gain weight anymore.

In truth, there was a time I was forcing myself to eat so that I would stop losing weight; especially during Bayadere when I was dancing in every scene and rehearsing night after night. Around that time, Jacqui started calling me the Incredible Shrinking Woman. There are people, not a lot, but a significant quantity, that were worried that I may be overdoing it. But I wasn't even on a diet then. And now, well, I eat frequently. I never go hungry because I avoid going hungry, meaning I eat at the first sign of a hunger pang.

Sometimes, though, I worry that maybe I'm getting too thin and I don't want to own up to it - serious anorexic behavior. There was this photo shoot I had (2 photo shoots ago, not the last one where I was convinced I'm ugly and unphotogenic) where I thought I was the fattest in my picture. I was grimacing whenever anyone opened the programme to the dancer's pages in front of me. Then, my mom says I looked bony in that picture. So, was it just my imagination? These days, I'm convinced I'm fatter than I was last week, but everytime I look in the mirror, I wonder. Just last Saturday, Jacqui compared me to a leaf and said a breeze would carry me off.

Even Niño was shocked at how thin I was. He had left the company and would take class every so often, but for a while, he got sick and wasn't able to take class. We see each other again on my birthday and before he greets me, he's like, "How'd you get so thin?" In ballet class a couple weeks later, he tells me, "You were never this thin when I was still here." I ask, "Panget?" And he smiles and shakes his head. It is the most encouraging conversation I've had recently about my weight, especially the fact that it was a dancer who was talking to me. Then again, it was also that it was Niño saying all that, and anything he says flips my flapjack.

For a while, I was thinking maybe I should gain a little, at least to get people off my case about being sick. But I really like how I look, never mind if people think I'm starving myself to death - which I'm not doing. Ballerinas are really supposed to be this thin. I know well enough to not let myself get to the Gelsey Kirkland danger zone.

Just thought you guys should know. In fact, I bought a jar of lenguas de gato this afternoon and I'm looking forward to consuming every crumb.