Helene Andreu
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Award Finalist in the National Indie Excellence 2007 Book Awards, Health category. Award-Winning Finalist in the Health: Exercise & Fitness category of the National Best Books 2007 Awards. This book offers clear guidelines on how to acquire fitness through enjoyable dance routines, movements for all parts of the body, and through good nutrition. It includes numerous photographs, useful hints on fitness and nutrition, a glossary, bibliography, discography, and an index, to assist the reader. You’ll find information on: exercising for your specific needs and lifestyle, without boredom; putting together creative dance routines by using movements that you know; getting the whole family involved in dance, movement and nutrition; using your practice time effectively to achieve greater coordination, stamina, flexibility, and cardiovascular fitness; obtaining better weight, relaxation, and alignment; avoiding common problems in executing dance and movements; preparing and eating well balanced, nutritious and colorful meals; knowing which foods to avoid; taking action to help prevent obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes; and making a difference by doing a little bit of effort on a daily basis.
Helene Andreu, an accomplished dancer, dance teacher and choreographer, studied at numerous excellent schools in New York, including the prestigious School of American Ballet, and performed and choreographed for summer stock and Off-Broadway musicals, operas and operettas. She received her M.A. in Dance Education from Columbia University, and also obtained licenses in Dance for High School, Junior High School, Early Childhood, and Recreation and Community Centers, all from the New York City Board of Education. Her teaching experience covers many forms of dance to all age groups, including 20 years at the New York City College of Technology.
When you start DANCE MOVEMENT AND NUTRITION - Fitness Minutes for a Healthier Life you should stick to Chapter One for one week. Read it completely, including the Movement and Nutrition hints interspersed throughout that chapter, before doing the exercises; then do them. Repeat this for several days until you feel confident about the material in the chapter. You'll be able to get through it and remember all the movements easily by the end of week one. The next week, do Chapter One again either slowly for more accuracy and strength, or at a faster pace for more cardiovascular fitness, or go through it two or three times in a row for greater stamina and endurance, then do the cooling down movements. Proceed to the next chapter. As you work through it, take off every third day to review the workouts that you've already learned. Continue working out in this fashion so that you will not forget the earlier workouts while learning those in the new section. After a while, drop the first few chapters, then later go back and review them before finishing the book. By the time you've reached the end of the book you will be in command of all it contains regarding exercise, movement and nutrition.
The simplest way of adding music to your practice time would probably be to put on the radio, but if you have a favorite disc or tape, then use it. I've suggested some music for a few of the routines and have included this in a Discography near the end of the book, but you may not need it since so much of the music on the radio is excellent for this purpose. Use popular or classical music, or perhaps you'd relish a few moments of silence. Suit yourself.
DANCE, MOVEMENT AND NUTRITION - Fitness Minutes for a Healthier Life provides you with many aids for learning and remembering the countless movement sequences. You'll find hints on technique for improved performance, suggestions for aerobicizing a movement further, and for simplifying it or taking it to a more advanced level. There are copious photographs to assist you in learning or recalling the movement sequences. The GLOSSARY near the end of the book has definitions and further information that may not be in any other portion of the book. If you wish to see what else the book offers on a particular subject, say lutein, or hamstrings, check the INDEX for page numbers. The Suggested Reading at the end of each chapter and the Bibliography at the end of the book list supplementary reading material for your enjoyment.
Among the NUTRITION HINTS to be found within each chapter are items on food intake versus calorie output that make it easy to understand that good nutritious food together with daily exercise is the secret for maintaining your best weight and for staying fit. You'll find much information on the latest "wonder," the innumerable phytochemicals, powerful antioxidants, to be found in fruits and vegetables of all colors, as well as news about the preferred fats and oils and also the worst ones for you. You'll be reminded that you do not need to know the names of the vitamins, minerals and antioxidants; you simply have to include a variety of different fruits and vegetables, a minimum of fat, salt, and sugar in your meals to be sure that you have a healthy diet. The notes on nutrition are labeled NUTRITION HINTS. There are also three easy recipes that can be varied by changing the ingredients and spices, or adding a little lemon juice, ginger or vinegar. I did not indicate cooking time, which is anywhere from 1/2 an hour to one hour depending on whether you use canned, frozen, fresh, large or small pieces as your ingredients. After all, this is not a cookbook; these recipes are just ideas for foods that are quickly prepared, tasty, and nutritious.
