It is said, “if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it”. With inactivity and lack of exercise, our muscles weaken and waste away. Our muscles keep us strong and help fight obesity; and exercise develops our muscles. With exercise, the human body is like a calorie-burning machine that supports weight loss. Unlike other forms of exercise, dance fitness can be fun. While dancing, we actually forget that we are really exercising. Remember the twist, salsa, boogaloo, meringue, jitterbug, mash potatoes, swing and many others from the late 40’s to the late 90’s? Now, Dance Fitness uses familiar music and rhythms that you enjoy dancing to as you fashion your own moves and channel your own inner dance. For 60 minutes a day you can burn over 330 calories, reach 10,000 steps and over 8, 000 fat-burning aerobic steps that you can do privately or with others. Did you know that if you ate a Big Mac with cheese and a large soda you will have consumed about 1,615 calories? This means you will have to dance 5 hours straight with no breaks in order to burn those calories and if not, they will be stored as fat. Conversely, 11 carrots equal 30 calories.
Health Benefits of Dance Fitness
- It increases the good, HDL cholesterol and decreases the bad, LDL cholesterol.
- It can reduce blood pressure by relaxing blood vessels and increasing blood flow.
- It reduces plaque build-up on artery walls that leads to hardening of the arteries.
- Prevents belly fat accumulation.
- Helps prevent heart disease and stroke by increasing blood flow to the coronary arteries.
- It has an insulin-like effect that increases the uptake of glucose into the muscles and helps to prevent the emergence of type-2 diabetes.
- It releases pleasurable brain chemicals that fight against depression and help build self-confidence and improves self-esteem.
- It reduces stress, anxiety, depression and boredom while supporting weight-loss and weight-loss maintenance by releasing dopamine and endorphins that are responsible for a sense of pleasure and well-being while giving us the ability to resist cravings and the impulse to overeat on psychoactive foods.
- It helps to prevent the emergence of such chronic diseases as arthritis, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, stroke, anxiety and depression just to name a few.