Dance Your Hiney Off

It’s been a while since I discussed how things are going on the exercise front so I thought I would give an update on how things are going.  Here is my weekly schedule:

• Monday is Sizemology.  This is a one hour dance class and we alternate jazz and hip hop dances.  Average calories burned for the hour is 275.
• Tuesday is Sizemology Choreography.  This is a 4 week series of one hour dance classes and we learn an entire song over the series.  Average calories burned for the hour is 275.
• Wednesday is Zumba.  This is a one hour dance/fitness class combining Latin dance with aerobic moves.  Very fast paced and intense.  Average calories burned for the hour is 650.
• Thursday is Mool Mani Yoga.  A very relaxing but challenging form of yoga created by my instructor, Angie Collins.  She combines vinyasa yoga with reiki healing and meditation.  Average calories burned is 200 but there are body toning and flexibility elements that are not measurable.
• Friday is an off day.
• Saturday starts with Mool Mani Yoga at 10am and then Sizemology at noon.
• Sunday is Zumba again.

That’s a total of 7 hours per week, averaging 2525 calories burned each week
.
I have spent the last few months maintaining my 50 pound weight loss.  I am trying to get back on the weight loss wagon but until I get my butt in gear, the classes and my weekday calorie counting have allowed me to not gain.  Weekends are blowing it for me but my goal right now is to NOT gain and it’s working.

What do you do to make sure you don’t ruin your progress?

Trying Yoga

My dance classes are working and I love them.  I like them so much that I was ready to add some additional classes.  I do Sizemology Dance on Mondays and Saturdays, Zumba on Wednesdays and Choreography on Thursdays.  I needed something for Tuesdays when some of my friends in Sizemology  mentioned a yoga class they were interested in attending. 

First of all, my past experiences with yoga have not been positive.  In fact, I kind of hated it.  Again, I am not a particularly “still” person and, although I was raised in a sort of New Age environment, I don’t generally respond to the New Age type of thought.  But my friends explained that this was different, this teacher was different.  So I decided to try it. 

I was pleasantly surprised.  I am pretty flexible and always have been, even for a fat girl, so the poses were challenging but not painful.  The instructor, Angie, told us to trust our body and let it guide us.  Angie is a Reiki practitioner and throughout the hour, she would walk through the class and gently touch the students, sometimes to slightly adjust the pose.  I am never comfortable with strangers touching me but Angie’s touch was comforting.


Angie’s melodic, soft voice was soothing.  She talked throughout the whole class, sometimes explaining how to do a pose, sometimes talking about energy and healing and spirituality.  Again, I am not one that normally responds to this type of thing but there was something about Angie’s voice, her excitement, the flow of her words that was so relaxing, even as I was sweating through a pose. 

Before I knew it, the hour was over.  I felt amazingly worn out, powerful and relaxed at the same time.  I went home that night and bought a class card.  And I went back this Tuesday.  I will be adding the Saturday class this week.

So now I am dancing four hours a week and doing yoga two hours each week.  I feel like I am getting into a very well rounded exercise routine that works on all parts of my body.  But the best thing about doing all that is that I get so much more than the calorie burn.  I love dancing and am learning that I love this type of yoga.  And it makes me a happier person.   That goes way beyond the weight loss.

Exercise, Shmexercise

I am not a fan of the gym.  So if you are trying to lose weight and get healthy, what do you do if you hate the gym?  You find alternatives.

Once I accepted the fact that I was going to have to exercise, I started looking for some options that I would enjoy.  I started with bike riding on the weekends and on an occasional week night but then it turned cold and one of my riding buddies got sick.  I didn’t want to do it alone.  I did some self-evaluation and realized that I need social interaction when I exercise.  That way I focus on the social part and forget about the fact that I am working out.  

I moved on to the Wii Fit Plus.  It allows you to set a calorie burn goal and tells you how you are doing along the way.  It was fun and it worked.  But I needed more than the interaction of a digital trainer that asked me if I had breakfast and told me my left leg was weaker than my right.

I read an article in Southern Living magazine about Sunny Becks Crumpton of Hooprama in Nashville.  She teaches hoop dancing for fitness.  Using a weighted hula hoop, you learn to move and “dance” with the hoop.  I found a local teacher, Charity of Hoopbug.com, and joined her class at BAPA in Knoxville.  It was fun and harder than I thought.  I started with one 6 week series on Sunday nights and will begin my next series of classes tonight.

I liked the group and dance part of this form of exercise so I started looking into the other classes offered at BAPA.  There was belly dancing, yoga, ballet, flamenco, hip hop, and some other stuff I had not heard of.  I decided to try Sizemology which is designed for all sizes of women but primarily larger women.  It mixes Jazz and Hip Hop and you learn different choreography each week. I also tried Zumba, a mixture of Latin dance and Aerobics.  And as soon as Anna of Sizemology added a second class, I signed up for that too. Today’s picture is a demo we did during The Healthy Living Expo.  It was snowing really bad and Anna and I were the only Sizemology dancers that could get there.  But we rocked!  Well, she did anyway.

I love the interaction in the classes, the dance part of it, and the all around fun of it.  I burn a lot more calories doing this than I do on a treadmill at the gym and I love it.  And I am exercising more than I would in the gym.  I do an hour on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and an hour and a half on Saturday.  And I still do my Wii Fit occasionally. This morning it was 30 minutes of yoga, strength, cardio and balance activities.

So don’t let the gym stop you.  And if you love the gym, go for it.  The point is to find something you love to do and JUST DO IT.