āJust close your eyes and sheāll be thereā is the last line of the 1967 hit song Pretty Ballerina by The Left Banke. We can all close our eyes and envision the ballerina. She is made of the stuff of legends, fantasies and myths. She toe dances in swoons and arcs. She leaps and flutters into the arms of her leading man.
The reality is far different. The performance is the tip of an iceberg of dedication, hard work and mental challenges. Professional ballerinas are the rarest of professional athletes. They merge their athleticism and incredible litheness into the beats of classical and modern musical arrangements. How hard is that? I canāt even imagine it.
We know a professional ballerina. She is everything you might expect a ballerina to be. Ahna Kollar started dancing at two. Her mother enrolled her in a local dancing school. At age ten she stopped dancing to play sports but by thirteen she was back to her first love, dancing.
She finished her training and joined the The Richmond Ballet. Her rehearsal schedule was grueling. Being a ballerina is being a professional athlete as well. Eating well and maintaining peak physical fitness is paramount for a ballerina. Soon though she began experiencing intense stomach pain and felt weak after eating meals. This caused her to have to sit out of rehearsals. She wound up seeing a gastro-intestinal specialist. Upon completion of tests the doctor determined that Ahna had an auto immune disorder called celiac disease. Celiac disease is an immune reaction triggered by eating gluten which is a protein found in wheat, barley and rye. Now her digestive pain had a name but she needed to address it by going on an elimination diet and find out who were the main culprits. She became gluten free but being gluten free requires effort and focus.
Try these recipes she uses in her gluten-free lifestyle: Gluten Free
