My knickers fell down at Stomp

Saturday night's Stomp went off with a bang. This is the second one I've been to, and I intend to keep on going. They run quarterly at the Albert Hall, raising funds for charities. For your $25 you get a couple of half hour dance classes (be in at 7pm), a DJ playing anything from Jazz & Swing through Latin to trashy 70s, a live band, and demos from lots of different dance groups. Miss Kitka's and Jumptown are my personal favourites, but some of the Latin dancers are spectacular. The band this time was Big Boss Groove - a bright and cheerful local band, with brass and multiple vocalists, and a nice range of danceable tunes.

You get a good chance to have a dance - and if you need a break, it's pretty wild just watching the crowd doing their individual things. Who cares what the music is? Salsa away to a swing tune, swing on to disco, do the twist to some hot latin number...

And yes, my knickers did fall down while I was dancing, but since I was wearing turquoise velvet trousers under my groovy purple & blue paisley kaftan, they didn't go far. No-one could have noticed. (Kaftan?? Did I mention the 60s theme? Well, that's why. Peace, man.) I had a quick look at said knickers before I threw them out, and was chuffed to notice that the elastic had not gone bung. They were simply too big for me. Yay! It's nice to have these confirmations of progress.

I've been working on losing weight and getting healthier since January 2006. At the time I was 97kg, well into the obese range. Now I'm on the overweight/obese borderline, 14 kg down on where I started. I'm about halfway to my goal. My blood pressure is down; my fitness is up. Even with residual tiredness hanging round from that damn flu, I could still dance more and longer than I could have 2 years ago. I'm not losing weight very quickly, but it is moving slowly but steadily in the right direction. It's not easy to combine a love of good food and cooking with weight loss, but it is possible. It's all about learning proper portion sizing; choosing quality over quantity; loving your fruit & veg & pulses; cutting out boredom & social eating in favour of eating only when hungry; and choosing exercise that is actually enjoyable. For me, this is dancing, cycling and walking. I've been considering jogging, but I hear the ice falls out of your glass if you do that.