How to dance the kilograms away

Carol-Anne Hickmore appears with Norm Hewitt.

Dancing with the Stars champion Norm Hewitt is looking to turn his new passion into a dieting craze.

A new Hewitt DVD called Dancing Diet will be in stores next week.

"Dancing is much more of a physical challenge than I ever imagined it would be," the former All Black hooker says.

He lost 19kg while training for the television dancing show, and continues to dance even though the show has long finished.

Dancing Diet has three workouts (cha-cha, rumba and jive) and includes nutritional tips and recipes.

It also features Hewitt's wife and former aerobics champion Arlene Thomas-Hewitt, his dance partner Carol-Ann Hickmore, and the show's runners-up, Shane Cortese and Nerida Lister.

In the main segment of the DVD, Hewitt takes to the streets and looks at how dancing has affected the lifestyles of New Zealanders.

"It's a flexible format which is entertaining and informative, paying homage to shows such as Country Calendar and even some of the more recent travelogue-type series," Hewitt says. "It really is about Kiwis and New Zealand as a whole."

The DVD is the first of a series called New Zealand Lifestyle which will include a look at keeping fit through gardening.