Thursday, August 4, 2011

Dance It OFF!

If you noticed, I haven't done a weight loss post in over a year.  I do have a very good reason for that, I wasn't losing weight.  No, not a single pound shed, but several gained as I enjoyed a little time "off of weight loss."  Here lately, it's become very apparent to me, that I need to get back on some kind of routine workout or something.  I think the sudden rash of pictures of me lately really made me see the ballooning effect (as if I didn't know it was already there).  I'll share this with you, just because I think this is the best way to help keep me motivated. Showing off how chunky I am will make me want to work back into some of my cuter outfits!

This is me, with my youngest at The Magic House.  I'm not even going to comment on my looks other than "Bleh."

After having hubby get my treadmill all moved around at our new house, I still haven't been able to bring myself on to it.  I don't know why, but I just keep avoiding it like the plague. lol  I needed some other kind of motivating work out routine.  Something different from the former things I had grown "used" to and "bored" with before.  The fresh idea came from listening to music with my 2 big girls.  They have recently grown fond of the "dance" songs, like Casper Slide and the Cupid Shuffle.  I did one of these dances with the girls this afternoon and afterwards realized I was sweating way too much for one song.  Then I realized, I was sweating way too much for one song!!!  That would be a great work out, it works legs for sure, some arms, some tummy, cardio, etc.  And, I think it's fun.

After doing a little research on the net, I found 7 fun songs to dance to!  So below is a my experiment pattern I plan to try and follow to display my results with the workouts!

Dance it OFF! Experiment
Day 1 (8/4/11)

The Experiment:
Learn the dance moves to 7 particular dance songs.  Dancing the songs in a certain, consistent order over time to produce weight loss results. Songs all involve moves to get the cardio working, as well as working various muscles in the body.  The song order is as follows:
  1. Electric Boogie -- Marcia Griffiths
  2. Cha Cha Slide -- DJ Casper
  3. Cupid Shuffle -- Cupid
  4. Cotton Eye Joe -- Rednecks
  5. Crank That -- Soulja Boy
  6. Macarena -- Los Del Rio
  7. Thriller -- Michael Jackson
The links with the song show either the original video with the dance moves or a dance instruction video.  Trying to make it easy for you to find some sources if you want to play along with me!

The Results:
I'm happy to say you could probably call the first go around a success.  I wasn't expecting dance hall fame and didn't get it! lol  It was more a learning of the steps.  Jake, Emma, and Catey all enthusiastically joined me to start out.  
The Electric Slide was something I learned in 7th grade, so as I started watching the video, it all started coming back to me.  Shortly afterwards, I was walking the kids through the steps and the counting, 1.. 2.. 3.. 4.., etc.  They really seemed to like the Electric Slide because its pretty simple.  I like it because I feel it's a very good warm up song/exercise, for the rest to come.  After finishing this song, I was pumped for the next!
Cha Cha Slide is a fairly popular tune that everyone and their mother can dance to.  They give you the dance moves in the song, so basically it's a dance in place until he tells you to go Left, and Back and Hop, and Stomp.  Pretty simple, no explanation needed for this song, the kids got right into doing it.  I danced my booty off to this song, while trying to teach the kids that you move in a square. lol 
On to the Cupid Shuffle.  This is another song where he give the instructions in the song, but unfortunately these don't come until the chorus... the line dancing starts when the music starts.  For reference it's "To the right, to the right, to the right, to the right, to the left, to the left, to the left, to the left. Now kick, now kick, now kick, now kick, Now walk it by yourself"  Basically start those dance moves when the music starts and the walk is when you turn in place to the next direction.  By this point, Catey had long lost interest, Jacob was wore out, and Emma enjoyed the "Kick" part.  By the time I finished this song, I was feeling really winded.  We all "Took 5" and had a drink to regroup.
Cotton Eye Joe was a little more involved.  Emma declared it was too hard for her, but I was determined to get as far through my list as I possible could.  I watched the video and got going along with the frat boys before turning it on.  This was one dance I didn't even remotely kind of learn until a few years ago, so it's not mastered at all.  I played the song to fruition, with a lot of mistakes, but got an amazing work out by the end.  I had to take another break at this point (told you I'm out of shape).
Next was a new dance for me. Jake came back to join in trying Crank That by Soulja Boy.  I had heard the song out, saw people doing the dance, but never really realized it was a "line dance" until I looked up line dancing earlier.  Soulja was nice enough to provide a very low volume video showing his moves to the dance. This is another good cardio.  After Jake and I hopped around for a few minutes practicing, we got to the song.  We made it 1:33 into the song before I called it quits.  I was exhausted.  Again, bad shape on my half, but also, have you tried this dance?!?!  Yeah, I called it a night at this point.  I had to sit. lol  And when I stood up, my legs were Jell-O.  I'd say it worked!

Unfortunately I didn't get to a kind of cool down with Macarena and I definitely didn't get to Thriller.  Thriller is kind of like my reward song.  It's the fun one we all want to learn how to do, so I'll work my way to it.  The goal is to get through the whole play list to get a good work, even better would be to actually look good doing the dance moves! lol 

I plan to not only update this with the dance experiment, but also other weight loss things.  I need to stay motivated.  It's time to finally start losing some of this... finally at the end of Summer....lol  And please, let me know if you want to play along with us!  I'd love to hear the progress and results of others!!

2 comments:

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  2. I tend to gain weight in the summer and get super thin in the fall. It's pretty backwards really! When I think about all the time I spend in a swimsuit during the summer, you'd think that I would strive to be skinnier in the summer...but I digress. I think it's really important to find an exercise that you enjoy! I'm sure you've heard of Zumba. It's a saucy Latin inspired dancing class. It's really fun and the amount of calories burned in 1 hour is CRAZY. So you may want to look into that class at a local gym or something. I do think it's really cool that you are doing the dances with your kids. What a fun thing to do together, and you are all burning calories at the same time! Looking forward to supporting you in any way you need during your weight loss adventure! I'm here for you, honey!

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