Sierra Naturals: Benefits of Dancing!

Dancing keeping us young. It slows down the aging process. It benefits our heart, cardiovascular system and increases our lung capacity. Dancing aids in the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis and also keeps joints lubricated, which helps prevent arthritis.

This wonderful and sexy exercise helps our bodies to allow for increased circulation. It helps us burn those calories away, while improving our stamina. It is estimated that dance burns anywhere from 5 to 10 calories per minute depending on speed and intensity.

If you like to dance, workout and burn calories then I suggest Zumba because it can help you build both muscle tone and cardiovascular endurance. These two benefits bring about a variety of positive health effects, including a lowered risk of developing hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis and obesity. A traditional Zumba class focuses on raising your heart rate and toning your leg muscles as well as your core. Zumba Toning targets all major muscle groups, resulting in more lean body mass.

Ok ...so now that I laid down all the facts...I want to share my experience with Zumba. I have never liked signing up for classes at the gym. I always just did my own thing and that's the way I liked to workout. However, I absolutely love to dance but I would rather dance at home or out with friends but we all know going out has it's down falls, the night clubs get old after a while. Life becomes too busy, we get lazy or simply lose the excitement for life and dance.

I lost it :( Hey I won't deny it because the whole point of me creating this blog is to be real and honest. I lost the feeling of being free to dance and move my body. I didn't feel comfortable to dance in front of people anymore and that is hard for me to admit because I used to dance on stage ..lol so that's what happened ...I lost myself...

I know I had to do something...I am a strong woman! I will get my spirit back! I said to myself one day and I did!! How??? you ask... I jumped in... head first to my 1st Zumba class with my best friend, my mom<3 We didn't know any of the steps but we weren't the only ones and there were all different kinds of women and men of all shapes and sizes. I looked around and all my fears disappeared into the rhythm of the music and I knew at that moment I fell in love. At the end of the class everyone was moving together like if we had been doing the same steps for years. Truly amazing.. as we stretched our arms up, I looked around and got goosebumps.

Dancing is spiritual, it is what connects us to the elements. If you observe fire- it dances as the flames burn up. Wind flows through the trees (which is Earth) making all it touches move and dance with it. Water-if you watch the waves crashing into each other and the flow of it you can hear the rhythm of it's dance with the wind. So you see dancing is a part of our nature. Sounds deep ...huh? Well, that's the point :D So, do you want to burn fat, tone up and have a blast doing it??? One word ZUMBA!