Hi. My name is Brenda, and I am a Zumbaholic. 🙂  No, really. I am powerless over Zumba. Every time I hear a song from our class playlist, I automatically start thinking of the routines in my head, and moving my arms and legs – even in the car! I actually get annoyed when I can’t go to class. When I can’t get there, I Zumba in my living room!! Last night I did two classes in a row – that’s right. Two glorious hours of non-stop fun! Who can say that they are still smiling and having fun in the second hour of a workout?? Now, I did wake up with a kind of “Zumba hangover” this morning – I was exhausted and sore, but it was so worth it!
I’ve always known that Zumba was a great workout, and there are estimates out there of how many calories you can burn in an hour – ranging anywhere from 300 – 1,000 depending on your weight, the intensity, etc. I wanted to find out the real deal, so I bought myself a new toy – a Polar FT60 heart rate monitor! It was really easy to set up and use. I got mine here. I wore it for the first time during one of my training sessions, and it was very simple to operate. I sync it with the Polar Personal Trainer website, and it keeps track of all of my data! It’s even easy to see the results of a session on the watch itself. For example, here is what it looked like after Zumba class number one last night…
…and here is what it looked like after Zumba class number two!
Yes, that is a total of 1,751 calories TORCHED in just under two hours! Even Eva (my amazing Zumba instructor) couldn’t believe it!!  So my Zumba Math equation is Zumba x 2 = -1,751 calories!! 🙂
Ok…so that’s not a real equation (my day job is as a math program coordinator for a pretty decent sized school district), but I love numbers. I’m a data geek. I love comparing stuff like this! I was really surprised that I burned more calories in the second class than I did in the first, because I thought I had let up a little bit on the intensity. Not according to the data, though! My intensity was actually HIGHER in the second class! My max heart rate was higher in the first class, but my average was higher in the second. I could do this all day… 🙂
I’m not going to bore you anymore with my data analysis, but I wanted to post this for a reason. It’s not just really cool to know all this stuff, but in the course of trying to become healthier, it’s important. I want to know how many calories I burn so I can better determine how best to fuel my body AND keep burning fat. I want to keep track of my intensity so I know when to ramp it up, and when to let up a bit.
I’ll keep posting about this from time to time – and we’ll see what new things I find when I crunch the numbers!
Losing It Little By Little 