People who have never been to a class sometimes wonder, "How does Zoomba help to lose weight?" One correction I would like to make, first of all, is the spelling of the word. It is usually spelled with a "u" not a "oo". But no matter, for this article the spelling will be interchangeable.
Zumba is an incredibly good cardiovascular, aerobic work out. Your body is always moving, stepping, or dancing in rhythm to Latin music. This requires a huge physical effort and the huge amount of calories burned in a one hour class is the answer to the question, "How does Zoomba help to lose weight?"
Factor in that there is very little down time during the work out, the body has no choice but to burn this huge amount of calories. By a huge amount I mean approximately 600 calories per hour work out, give or take a few.
It is said that to lose one pound of fat from your body you need to burn off 3500 calories. Now it would seem that you could easily do this by burning 600 calories per day with this work out but you also need to take into account the amount of calories you take in every day and then do the math.
For example, if you are on a 1500 calorie per day eating plan, at the end of the week you will have taken in 10,500 calories. If you burn off 600 calories per day in one of these hour long classes you only burn off 4200 by the end of the week. That still leaves a 6300 calorie surplus per week that has been stored in your body.
Decrease your calorie intake to 1200 per day then you will be a lot closer to being able to lose some weight and since your body will continue to burn calories after the work out you will notice a difference very quickly, especially if you are gaining lean muscle in the process.
Part of the Zumba workout involves the use of weights. Weights increase the calorie burn while simultaneously toning and strengthening the muscles.
Zumba is known as an interval work out. This means that there are slower and faster rhythms at different times. The slower rhythms are the rest periods. This type of work out burns more calories and also keeps your metabolism stoked for hours after the event.
Conventional cardiovascular exercise can be boring. This more often than not leads people to stop exercising at all. This is where a Zumba work out is different. When your work out is fun and interesting, you won’t want to stop until you reach your goals and with the friends you make you will want to keep going even after you reach your goal weight.
When exercise is fun and you enjoy it and see real results, it will also help you stay on track with your new eating plan, too. It enables you to remain accountable for your actions and fully answers the question, "How does Zoomba help to lose weight?"