Dancer’s Diet – Attain Healthier Body to Keep Your Passion Alive

Are you an avid dancer? Do you often wonder what kind of diet you shall consume to create sync between your diet and dance routine? Well, you don’t have to explore anymore because dancer’s diet has specifically been developed for dancers. Though balanced and nutritious diet is everyone’s requirement, but it is more crucial for dancers because their bodies burn more calories than those of non-dancers.

Why Balanced Diet Is Vital for Dancers?

Since dancers’ body is generally lean and supple, requirement of proper diet becomes even more significant for them. Instead of depriving their bodies to grow slender, they shall provide them adequate nourishment to stay fit and in angular shapes. For making various difficult and complicated dance movements, their joints have to be resilient. And aside from a wholesome diet, there is no other magic-spell or magical diet which can uphold their sculpted and hale body. Moreover, dance no being just a body workout seeks equal participation from your mind also, to memorize varied movements. So, your mind has to be astute and quick to perform graceful dance steps. Nutritious diet nourishes your mind and promotes the release of noble hormones which make you feel exhilarated.

What is Balanced Diet?

Balanced diet has adequate proportion of all the vital nutrients such as carbs, proteins, and fats. Should you feed plenty of high-protein, high-fat foods to your body, they alone are incapable of bestowing proper nourishment to your body, and thus we cannot call them complete diets. Complete and balanced diet has proportionate ratio of all the nutrients. And it’s next to impossible to give pre-fixed estimation of the ratio of nutrients because your body weight, height, physical condition, physical activities etc. determine their ratio.

How Dancer’s Diet Should Be?

Dancer’s diet recommends dancers to consume minimum five to six small meals over three big meals in a day. Since your body requires energy for performing strenuous physical activities, you shall fuel it frequently. Keeping you hungry for long hours only make you feel exhausted which is detrimental for your health. You shall carry healthy snacks with you and have them whenever you feel hungry. Besides, long hungry hours might mess up your metabolism and blood sugar level. Carbs Carbs being the main energy centers for your body requires dancers to consume minimum 65% of carbs, to gain energy to perform dance activities. Carb being broken into glucose after reaching inside your body starts being stored in the form of glycogen in liver and muscles. High carb foods cause spike in your blood glucose level, so the best thing you can do is instead of consuming high carb foods such as sugary and processed foods, consume complex carbs such as oatmeal, cereals, fruits, vegetables, brown rice etc. While sugary, processed, and other high carb foods are deficient in nutrients, complex carbs are nutrient dense. Your carb consumption should ideally be six to ten grams of carbs per kilo of your body weight. Longer the time you devote to dancing, more the carb you require to boost you. Since all the stored sources of glycogen are being utilized by your body while dancing, it’s paramount for you to re-fuel it with carb within two hours of intense physical activity. Proteins Proteins too are crucial for all the dancers. Since dance implies intense exercises, causing a lot of wear and tear of muscles, proteins help your body in initiating muscle repairing process. Besides that, protein catalyzes the release of special enzymes responsible for speeding up your metabolism. You shall consume 1.4 to 1.6 grams of proteins per kilo of your weight. Instead of going for protein supplements, prefer consuming fresh sources of proteins. For example, animal food eaters can prefer consuming turkey, chicken etc. while plant food eaters can consume seitan, tofu, rice, beans etc. to satisfy their protein need. Fats Besides being responsible for creating cell membrane, forming protective shield around hormones and nerves, fats also help in the metabolism of vitamins, which are soluble in fats. You shall consume 1.2 grams of fats per kilo of your weight. Forbid over-consumption of saturated fat because it is the main culprit responsible for several chronic diseases such as high cholesterol level, high blood pressure, obesity etc. in your body. Fats get stored in the form of trigycerides in adipose tissue and muscles of your body. And when you practice exercises or do vigorous physical activities for more than twenty minutes, triglycerdies stored in your body get broken into fatty acids to provide you energy. Dearth of essential fats in your body might cause serious damage to your body. Fluid Your body loses enormous water in the form of sweats while dancing. If you don’t drink sufficient amount of water to compensate the loss; you are very likely to become victim of dehydration. While dancing, you lose up to two liters of water in an hour. So, you are recommended to consume eight ounces of water after every fifteen minutes to cover up the loss of water. And since your thirst system doesn’t work in harmony with the fluid requirement of your body, drink fluid frequently without being prompted by thirst. Avoid drinking sugary drinks, fruit juices, and soda etc. in the small intervals. Plain water is always the best option to meet the hydration requirement of your body. Micronutrients Micronutrients consist of vitamins, minerals, iron, calcium, and other nutrients. All the vitamins such as vitamin A, B, C, D, E, K, and B12 have their own defined functions in your body. Apart from them, since mineral requirement of your body is 100 mg in a day, you diet should be dense in various minerals such as potassium, magnesium, calcium, zinc etc. Dancer’s diet has advocated various food items opulent in diverse micronutrients to meet the daily nutrient requirement of your body. You are recommended to inculcate tons of fruits, veggies, whole grains, nuts and seeds, lean red meat etc. in your diet regime to nourish your body with all the vital nutrients.