Dance Away the Pounds: How to Lose 10 Pounds by Dancing

 You can lose ten pounds just by adding dancing to your life. It will require careful food monitoring, picking your moves carefully, music selection, managing your time, and planning a dance routine. It's important to remember that everyone's body is different, so you might lose weight slightly faster or slightly slower than someone else. Your weight loss will also depend on how much weight you have to lose. People with a higher body mass index or BMI are more likely to lose closer to 2-3 pounds a week whereas a person with a lower BMI or of older age may only lose 1-1.5 pounds a week. Here is a way to lose 10 pounds in 1-2 months through dancing and having fun.

Food Monitoring

It's important to avoid increasing your caloric intake when you start your dancing exercise program. If you add more calories, you'll either maintain or gain weight. Your body might want more calories because you'll be increasing your metabolism. You can count calories and use measuring cups and spoons or you can just make a log of exactly what you are eating and then replicate it in the weeks following. You can also focus on food groups and food exchanges to track your calories while eying amounts instead of measuring them. An ounce of chicken, for instance, is about the size of a deck of cards.

Managing Dance Time

To lose weight by dancing, you should strive for at least 20 minutes of time with an accelerated heart-rate at least 4-5 days a week. You should start with a 5 minute warm-up and end with a 5 minute cool-down which means 30 minutes, 4-5 times a week. Rather than watching the clock, manage your time through music as described in the next section. Set an alarm for your total dancing time on your cell phone or a clock that you can then hide. It will make the time go faster.


 Calorie Burning Dance Moves

The key to burning calories is to move your whole body. The best dance moves include the old standby move of a step with one foot and then bringing the other foot next to the first one and then going the opposite way. Add arm movements that go at least up to the shoulders and your heart will start pumping. You can also jog around the room. You'll be surprised how tired you get if you have your legs shoulder width apart and you just twist and alternate bending each leg with your arms doing the washing machine rotation movement at chest level. If you mix in leg lifts and knee lifts bringing your opposite elbow to the knee, you're really working your legs and abs. Then it's all about creativity and keeping moving. You can just gyrate and swing your arms like a mad person. No one needs to see you.

Music Selection

First find a free online metronome so you can determine music speeds. You can click on a certain number on the metronome and that should be the basic beat of the song. For your warm-up and cool down, you'll want music that's around 88 - 100. For your 20-minute full aerobic time, choose music that has a metronome marking between 108 - 112 for your step together dancing, and 104 for your leg lift dancing. Pick music you love that makes you feel happy

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8 Reasons You Need to Try Pole Fitness

Why this new workout craze is more sporty than sexy

 

I’m always up for trying something new, especially when it comes to my workouts. So when a Groupon for Pole Fitness in my town popped up, I decided to give it a try. It's pole dancing; How tough could it be?

Boy was I in for a surprise! After one hour-long class, every muscle in my body was quivering, and I was slightly discouraged that I couldn’t do half the moves the instructor showed in this ‘introductory’ class. At the end of class, I was told that I need to wear less clothing, as skin on pole contact is best and my go-to sweats and tee-shirt just weren’t cutting it.

Refusing to be a quitter, I took the same ‘intro to pole’ class exactly one week later, this time, armed with my determination and the required ‘uniform’ of 5-inch clear Lucite platform heels and tank and skorts ensemble. After my second class, I was shocked by my strength gains. I was ‘spinning’ and ‘climbing’ before I knew it. Plus, it was fun!

Despite gasps of shock from family and friends (“you’re doing what?”), I was hooked and determined to fit pole fitness into my life. Just a few classes later, I feel stronger, longer, and leaner. And I want you to feel the same! I sat down with the ladies at NY Pole, one of the premier pole fitness companies in New York, to dispel the stereotypes and find out why all women should give pole fitness a try. Here’s what I learned:

1. It’s Risqué

“The stereotype of what pole dancing means to the majority of people, although changing and getting better every day, is part of the allure to some women,” says instructor Tracy Traskos, of NY Pole. It’s also a great conversation topic at parties or even at work.

2. It’s like Role Playing

Besides the fact that you get to wear 6-inch stilettos when you work out, you also get to be a sex siren for an hour. Coupled with building the leg and arm strength needed to climb the pole and hold yourself up and the coordination to follow the choreography, you get to do moves like head and hip rolls, mimicking the sexy dancers you often see at strip clubs (while toning at the same time!)

3. Female Bonding

“Women who take the classes together create great friendships while bonding over the fun of pole dancing,” Traskos says. “Also, no one is catty or judgmental so it’s a place you can be free to look foolish if you want to!”

4. It’s an Accomplishment

“Participants feel like they have accomplished something great they never really thought possible,” Traskos says. Plus, it’s a safe, fun, and effective way to learn the art of pole dancing. At an advanced level, pole dancing is both a cardio and strength workout, which can burn 800 calories an hour or more!

5. You Get Individual Attention

Rather than group fitness classes, where one instructor is often teaching a dozen participants or more, pole dancing classes are smaller and more intimate. You get a lot of individual attention from the instructor, similar to personal training sessions.

6. It’s Much Harder than it Looks

“This aspect of it builds confidence and improves body image and the ability to tackle other seemingly out of reach goals in life,” Traskos says. “This confidence inevitably blends into other areas of your life, including relationships.”

7. It’s Four Exercises in One

“[Pole dancing] effectively combines strength training, endurance, and flexibility training into one fun activity,” Traskos says. “It’s yoga, Pilates, TRX, and Physique 57 all wrapped into one. And in high heels!”

8. It Teaches the Power of Bodyweight Workouts

“Most woman work way harder in pole class than in the gym,” says Traskos, who was a personal trainer for 15 years before joining the team at NY Pole. “There is a time and place for the gym, but pole appeals to women who hate the gymmor never even go. And most of the exercises we do, like climbing the pole, are a lot tougher than doing biceps curls.

 

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