“To my Zumba peers,
I would like to share with you the achievement I’m most proud of in the last year.
My name is Lynn, I’m a Southern person, I come from sunny Mediterranean Lebanon, a little, messy, yet amazing Middle Eastern country with four real distinct seasons.
Couple months after landing in Ireland I had to go through a surgery it took me a year and a half to recover from fully. I went from being a rather active person to being completely sedentary for 1.5 years. And we, girls, know how that affects badly our body and mind.
Until one day I woke up, a year ago, feeling energised and ready to fight what was making me somehow demotivated, moody, unhappy: my body. During this sedentary period, I had put on 14 kg (30 lbs) that I wasn’t comfortable with at all.
That day, for the first time in a long while I went to the gym. I just walked fast on the treadmill for an hour. I did the same a second time that week. Somehow, I felt good. I repeated and increased the frequency to three the week after, and kept going for a month. I hadn’t changed anything in my not-so-healthy diet, but a month later, I had lost 2 kgs (4 lbs) of fat and I could see it and feel it.
I’ve never been a big fan of gyms though, but I liked what it did to me. So I started looking at an alternative that I would actually truly enjoy, and I knew it was Zumba: Good music, good moves, good mood, why not!
I did my research on Google and it didn’t take me long before I find out about Zumba Dance and Health and realised it was the best option by far: Many classes during the week and the weekend, many of them at a walking distance, different instructors, different styles. I gave it a shot and, well… I fell in love!
I started slowly but surely, doing the moves I felt I could do: it was exhausting at first but so much fun that I didn’t mind it. I would come regularly to class: no room for thinking If I’d go for it or not, I would just leave work and walk to Zumba. That’s an extra 35 min of quick walk each way. And yes I started losing more weight through the months.
Feeling more energetic, fit and happy thanks to Zumba, I thought that changing some of my eating habits progressively would help me get faster to my objective: losing 14 kgs (30 lbs). And it did, and it wasn’t as tough as I thought! I started cutting on unnecessary carbs but still made a point to have some small portions of it every day. I also cut on unnecessary sugars and fatty foods and replaced them with fresh vegetables, for instance as snacks at work. I actually started enjoying real, good food, appreciating the taste of healthy ingredients.
In 6 months, I reached my goal. And today, 10 months later, I happily surpassed it and have
lost a total of 17 kgs (37 lbs) and I’m considered to be in the very fit ranges of Body Mass Index. My metabolism is close to someone’s metabolism who’s half my age, and most importantly, I’m a much happier person.
What it took me? At the beginning, some internal strong will, then progressively doing small
yet critical changes that are today what I consider to be my new lifestyle; really, listening to my body. It also took an external support system: my Zumba instructors and the Zumba classes and community. I am clearly a big fan of Zumba Dance and Health, happily abusing of my yearly pass, and surely am not the only one.
It makes my day when arriving to class, Zsuzsanna tells me that I’m always such a smiley person… Zumba did drive my overall level of happiness up by a lot, yet like everyone else, I have some good days, some bad days; but what Zsuzsanna probably would not know is that it is the simple idea of starting the Zumba class in the following minutes that makes me that happy and smiley in anticipation.
Lynn Mazloum
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