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Dancing to Lose Weight

At the end of my last post which beat on about exercise for weight loss here, I mentioned that I'd be writing about some other enjoyable ways of slimming and getting in shape that are fun to do.

Well, here's one that is so much fun to do that it won't even feel like exercise! What am I talking about? Dancing!

For many people, the thought of dancing might seem silly or childish, or something that other people do. Well, I can tell you that it can be a lot of fun as well as being a very pleasurable way to shift some extra pounds as well as toning up your body at the same time.

So what kind of dance is best?

Best Types of Dance

Well, there are lots of great dances or dance routines you can do that are energetic enough to raise your heart rate and force your muscles to work hard. Which, as you already know from reading earlier articles here, are necessary prerequisites for losing weight.

You can go for the really energetic dances that you can do to the heavy beat laden "dance music" which is usually fast and furious. Or you can go for the less energetic styles that you can do with a partner which have an interesting side effect, as I shall explain...

When you are dancing with your partner and I mean the person you are in love with, or are falling in love with, of are dating seriously, or even just starting to date, then there is more going on than simple exercise. You are creating sexual chemistry between you and that in itself is a powerful body and muscle toning exercise all in itself.

Don't discount this as smut or something to be giggled about, this is serious. When two people are in the dating process and they dance closely together, even if its a slow, smoochy kind of dance, the sexual chemistry is coursing through your bodies and sending all your muscles into the same state of readiness for action that other forms of exercise generate.

Raising Heart Rate

This means that your heart rate is elevated and your muscles are burning much more energy than when at rest. The knock on effect is that your body has to release more sugars into your blood stream to feed the muscles which, after about 20 minutes will, in turn, cause your body to start taking those sugars from your fat reserves as the body uses up what it has in the blood supply. Meaning you will lose fat bulk, leading to weight loss.

OK, sorry to have put the slow, sexy dance into scientific terms, but it always helps to know what is going on. So if you're not an energetic dancer, get smoochy with your partner for half an hour or so and you'll still be doing your body a power of good!

Dancing Workouts

As for the faster dances, then you are moving into the realms of a serious workout that lacks the boring repetitiveness of the gym workout and is a lot of fun to do. For this you will need the right music and have it fairly loud (which will not please your neighbors, so choose your time well).

Then go for it!

Maybe watch a Zumba Fitness DVD with some good dance moves to get ideas and simply copy what they do.

A word of warning: Be careful in the early stages of dancing energetically. Like any exercise form, you must start slowly and build up to the burn! You don't want to pull a muscle or have an accident early on so do some stretching before you start and work your way up over a period of days or weeks.

Go at your own pace and only do what you feel comfortable doing as too much is never good. Then as you build up from maybe ten minutes to half an hour or so a day of dance moves, you'll certainly tone up your body and lose weight.

The best part about this is that any form of dancing is fun to do, so whether you like to take it slow and smoochy with a partner you are attracted to, or whether you like to leap about like a young John Travolta, as weight loss tips go, this is one of the real fun ones!

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Posted on Sat, 08 Nov 2008 in Exercise | 1 Comments