Ok if anyone has read my previous posts, you know any form of cardio is a boring chore to me. The most I have been doing is 20 minutes of Turbo Jam along with my trust Polar heart rate monitor. 20 minutes of Turbo burns about 170 calories. I am in my heart rate zone for burning fat for about 7-9 minutes of those 20 minutes. I suppose thats ok for a couch potato, but its not great. I have longed for something that I would actually love doing that would burn fat but that seemed like a long pipe dream. Until now..
I ran up on a girl who had lost 95 pounds doing Dance dance Revolution. If you don't know what this is..its a video game, thats right.. a video game! Well I am a self proclaimed geek anyway. So I told my son to bring his Xbox home (he'd left it at his girlfriends for the last 8 months and since mom bought it..mom wanted to use it :P) Anyway, he brought it home for me when he came home for college and his girl friend since her DDR games since she was busy with work and not using them anymore. I admit I was skeptical. I've seen videos of people doing DDR and at 207 pounds, I can't do that fancy jumping and footwork they do. Well there are different modes so I chose light and the slowest song I could find. I'd do it once or twice then sit down and say.. I don't believe this will do anything.. but after a few days I started to get a little better. That slow song I was getting a E on moved up to a D then a C then an A on to the elusive AA. Once I stopped thinking of it as exercises and just started enjoying the game..it opened up a whole new world and way to work out for me.
Today for instance, along with my heart rate monitor that measures heart rate and calories, I was on DDR for 56 minutes. Try to get me to do any bodies aerobics for that long and i'd be read to shoot myself. But this was fun, the time flew and I really wasn't ready to get off but it was time to pick up my hubby. After 56 minutes I had burned 408 calories! This, from playing a game thats fun! I was in my target heart rate zone for 46 of those minutes. I had sweat pouring down my face and I completely loved it!
This isn't a chore, its fun and I could see myself doing it several times a day..not just an hour. I think I have finally found my niche. Finally I have found a form of cardio I absolutely love.
If your kids have an xbox or Ps2, and you hate cardio as I do. Give it a try. I think you might find the video game makers are on to something.
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