Hello my fellow fitness fanatics! It's been awhile but
I'M BACK!!! It's been over a month since I lasted wrote a new blog post and I apologize for that but life has had this fit girl pretty busy! You know how it goes, work, family & friends, hobbies, and everyday life in general can overwhelm you at times. Also, I'm not sure if you all can tell this or not, but I'm a person who loves to try new things, if I'm interested in at all, I'm going to give it a try, so that's one characteristic I possess that can get me into trouble sometimes where I get so busy trying this and that, that I lose sense of my priorities and writing this blog
is a priority for me. So here I am, back and ready to give you my all when it comes to fitness, nutrition, motivation and encouragement!
(I'm also still working on my big surprise for you guys (the one that I mentioned before in my last post that will hopefully will help you achieve and/or maintain total fitness? Yes, that's the one!) It should be ready any day now and when it is, there will be a big announcement so there's no chance of you missing it.)
Now even though I've been M.I.A. on Confessions Of A Fit Girl, don't think for a second I've been missing in action when it comes to my fitness & nutrition! I'm a fit girl for life! That is one area of my life where I make NO EXCEPTIONS! Working out and eating healthy is non-negotiable, it's just as simple as that. In fact, I've tried a new workout program since I last wrote you guys which I'm loving so much I have to share! This program isn't new at all, it's been around for awhile now and even though I'm the self-proclaimed "Exercise Video Queen" who "tries everything", I regretfully admit that I never even considered giving this a try in the past. I'm not a big fan of dance workouts and I was always hesitant, thinking that I would be way to uncoordinated to get the moves. (Just a quick word of advice, when it comes to exercise dvds, if it's too complicated - and by complicated I don't mean
challenging because that's an entirely different situation, you WANT your workout to challenge you, but complication equals frustraion and when frustrated with exercise, 99.9% of the time you're going to feel defeated and throw in the towl.
Just thought I'd throw that in there in case any fitness instructors are out there reading this. :) Now back to the subject at hand... )
But boy, was I wrong! Not only did I get the moves, I ended up
LOVING IT! So much that after attending my first live class this past Saturday, I'm thinking of starting to attend classes regularly.
What am I talking about? ZUMBA!!!!!!
So What is "Zumba"?
 |
Zumba® class led by creator,
Alberto "Beto" Perez |
In case you've never heard of Zumba
®, let me first explain what it is. Zumba is like a big party with
the added benefit of hundreds of calories burned! It’s an exhilarating, effective, easy-to-follow, Latin-inspired, calorie-burning dance fitness-party that’s moving millions of people toward joy and health.
Zumba Fitness
® is the only Latin-inspired dance-fitness program that blends red-hot international music, created by Grammy Award-winning producers, and contagious steps to form a "fitness-party" that is downright addictive. I know it was for me after the first day! Since its start in 2001, Zumba Fitness has grown to become the world’s largest – and most successful – dance-fitness program with more than 10 million people of all shapes, sizes and ages taking weekly Zumba classes in over 90,000 locations across more than 110 countries.
How It All Got Started...
Sometimes, great ideas are born from accidents. In the mid-‘90s, no one could have predicted the success of the Zumba
® program, not even Alberto "Beto" Perez, who created the Zumba program, after what many have called a true "happy accident." As a fitness instructor in his native Cali, Colombia, Beto’s life took an unexpected turn one fateful day in the mid-‘90s when he darted off to teach an aerobics class and forgot his traditional aerobics music. He improvised using his own mix of music from tapes he had in his backpack (salsa and merengue music he grew up with). Spontaneously, he created a new kind of dance-fitness, one that focused on letting the music move you (instead of counting reps over the music). His class loved it! And on that day, a revolutionary new fitness concept was born – the Zumba
® Fitness-Party.
Zumba Fitness: The Company
In 2001, Beto brought his new dance-fitness style to Miami, Florida and created a business, calling it Zumba Fitness. They trademarked the word Zumba
® and set a goal to expand the brand all over the world. First came the DVDs, then the infomercial – which introduced the Zumba Fitness-Party to the public on a wide-scale basis – then came the demand for Zumba classes and Zumba Instructors. That’s when the company took off and the Zumba program expanded in a big way with apparel & accessories, music CDs, and in 2008, one of the best-selling at-home fitness DVD series ever –
The Zumba Fitness® Total Body Transformation System. In 2010, Zumba became the first branded fitness program to launch a video game on all three major gaming platforms: Wii, Xbox, and PS3.
Fast forward to today, the Zumba program is now taught in gyms and studios all over the world to millions of Zumba enthusiasts! Like me!
The Zumba Fitness® Total Body Transformation System
This is the workout program that I started Zumba with (and will continue to use even when I begin going regularly to live classes. As you know, I am an exercise video junkie who has lots of videos, but once I picked this up I just could not put this one down! I immediately loved it.
What's Included:
- Zumba Fitness Basics Workout
- Zumba Fitness 20-Minute Express Workout
- Zumba Fitness Sculpt & Tone Workout
- Zumba Fitness Cardio Party Workout
- Zumba Total Body Transformation Guide
- Zumba Fitness Flat Abs Workout
- Zumba Fitness Live! Workout
- (2) Zumba Fitness Toning Sticks
The Basics Workout teaches you the Zumba moves. It's pretty long (I think around an hour) but it really goes over every single move you'll be doing in the rest of the workouts so it's essential you start out with that. My hesitation towards Zumba was always that I felt I would never be able to do the moves, but after doing the Basics video I had no trouble at all! (And even though it's only "teaching" you the moves, it's a pretty good calorie burner, too!) I only needed to do the Basics Workout 1 time before moving on to the 20-Minute Express Workout and then soon, the full on Cardio Party which is around 45 minutes. I've also now done Zumba Sculpt & Tone, Flat Abs and Live! All are great cardio as well as strength and toning. One thing I don't like about most ab workouts is there's always a lot of floor work and hardly no cardio at all. Not true with Zumba! With Zumba, even though you are working your abs you are STILL getting a workout and burning those calories!
NOW THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!!! :) The Live! video is pretty nice because it's basically the Cardio Party but with a live class so you really feel like you're apart of the party. And that's what Zumba is,
a party! No matter whether you're doing the workouts alone at home or in a fitness class with other people, the music and dancing of Zumba make it a party and actually fun to workout!
So would I recommend Zumba? Of course I would!
Don't wait, give Zumba a try today! Ditch the routine and join the party!
To preview Zumba before buying and/or attending a class, check out this video of The Zumba
®Fitness Total Body Transformation System:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOpXuHL9RM4
To buy,
click here.
In 2001, Beto brought his new dance-fitness style to Miami, Florida and created a business, calling it Zumba Fitness. They trademarked the word Zumba® and set a goal to expand the brand all over the world. First came the DVDs, then the infomercial – which introduced the Zumba Fitness-Party to the public on a wide-scale basis – then came the demand for Zumba classes and Zumba Instructors. That’s when the company took off and the Zumba program expanded in a big way with apparel & accessories, music CDs, and in 2008, one of the best-selling at-home fitness DVD series ever – The Zumba Fitness® Total Body Transformation System. In 2010, Zumba became the first branded fitness program to launch a video game on all three major gaming platforms: Wii, Xbox, and PS3.
