Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

I’ve been dancing NIA for five years. I recently wrote a piece for our local weekly newspaper that explains NIA, but since that story wasn’t about me, I didn’t describe my personal experience with it.

Aside from the sheer love of moving to music, which I think all of us have (whether it’s foot tapping or wild leaping) NIA has helped me love my body. That happened over time and with the encouragement of NIA teachers to trust my myself. “Your body, your way,” is a NIA mantra.

This mantra has filtered into other areas of my life. I will share just one of many examples. Roughly a year and a half ago, I was unhappy with my weight. I tipped the scales at 167 pounds. I’ve never been thin, but this was a lot for a 5’2″ woman to be packing around. I’m old enough to have seen many diet fads come and go. Some helped me knock a few pounds off, but nothing stuck. I always gained the weight back. This isn’t an unusual story and researchers who specialize in weight loss confirm that keeping off lost pounds is something just 20 percent of dieters do.

Because I’d just spent a few years in weekly NIA classes absorbing the “my body, my way” message, I began thinking about what would work for me. I didn’t look outside myself for a weight loss strategy. And I came up with a focus and intent (another NIA thing) about eating. I began thinking of myself as someone who has a food allergy — say a nut allergy or lactose intolerance. I told myself that I would need to manage my eating differently for the rest of my life. To lose weight, I’d have to eat less. I wouldn’t eliminate any food categories, I’d just eat less.

That was the beginning of incremental changes that allowed me to shed 17 pounds in 10 months. I’ve been able to keep those pounds from coming back over the last six months. I am not for a minute saying that the weight loss has been easy. I’ve kept a journal about it, and there are entries in my journal where the word “brutal” gets used. It has been psychologically brutal to step on the scales and see no change when I think I’ve been a responsible eater. But progress has come in my body’s time and way, and the success is sweet. I own it. And the success helps propels me forward.

For me, NIA has been more than an exercise I do a few times a week (once a week when I’m really busy, four times a week when my schedule allows). It has changed the way I think about my body. And that change has altered the ways that I think about a lot of other things.

The act of dancing NIA, of moving to wonderful music with a community of dancers, brings great joy in the moment. If that’s all it did, it would be more than worth it. I’m so glad I found it.