Category: Fitness

Your Shape Fitness Evolved: Week 1 Diary and Giveaway

Fitness, Games, Giveaway, Health, Video Games

Your Shape Fitness EvolvedI’m always looking for ways to burn calories.  (Running after kids only gets you so many burnt calories.)  Going to the gym may be for some people, but I just can’t take the time to drive there and back often enough.  Any workout I do needs to be able to be able to be done from the home.  Preferably during down time when the kids are asleep or otherwise occupied.  For this reason, I love the latest generation of workout video games.  Don’t let the "video game" name confuse you: these suckers can really make you feel the burn.

During the next five weeks, I’ll be posting my progress with Ubisoft’s Your Shape Fitness Evolved for the XBox 360.  My goal will be to workout 3 times a week and burn at least 150 calories per session.

For my first workout, I began with some warm up activities.  First, I did Hu-La-La, where you wiggle your hips as if you are playing with a hula hoop.  This was very intense and I really felt the effects of this exercise in my stomach.  This burned 8 calories.  Next up, I selected Run the World: New York Times Square.  Running burned 70 calories.  I could have burned more, but I had some trouble with the Kinect losing me while I was running in place.  (This isn’t a fault of Your Shape Fitness Evolved, but seems to be an issue relating to the small size of my room.  After this, I repositioned the Kinect and it seems to be better.)

Testing YSFE at B's parents' houseAfter this, I tried Stack ‘Em Up: Hard, a balance game where you need to hold up a platform to catch falling blocks, to burn 4 calories.  Then, I played Jump Rope: Easy (exactly what it sounds like) for 19 calories.  Next, Wall Breaker: Medium (where you punch/kick to break bricks hovering in front of you).  This one really helped me work up a sweat and scored 23 calories.  After this was Juggle It which is kind of like a virtual hacky sack game (only with a ball).  This surprised me and burned 15 calories.  I didn’t think it would burn that many.  Finally, I played Stomp It: Easy (where you need to stomp panels "in front" of you to the music) for 10 calories and Wall Breaker: Easy for 7.

Total calories burned in this session: 152.

The next session, I tried Pump It (where you flap your arms and bend your knees to inflate and then pop a ball) for 26 calories, Kick It (a soccer goal shooting game) for 19 calories, Hurricane (where you roll your arms around in circles to levitate some balls) for 19 calories, Stack It: Medium for 4 calories, Wall Breaker: Hard for 23 calories and Run the World: New York 5th Avenue for 70 calories.  Total calories burned: 161.

I was going to have a third session, but life intervened.  And by life, I mean JSL got sick and I had to tend to him instead of working out.  I do plan on doing three workouts for next weeks’ installment.

Giveaway

You could win a copy of Your Shape Fitness Evolved.  Simply post a comment to this blog post.  When my five week series is finished, one commenter from across the five posts will win a copy of the game from Ubisoft.

Disclaimer: I was given a copy of Your Shape Fitness Evolved by Ubisoft and financially compensated for this  Clever Girls Collective, Inc. campaign.  In addition, I was loaned an XBox 360 and Kinect for the duration of the campaign.  The opinions expressed above, however, are my own.

A Pledge To Get Into Shape

Fitness, Weight Loss

body_scaleOne of my New Year’s resolutions was to cook more.  Part of my reasoning for this was that I wanted to eat healthier.  In the past, I’ve begun the year with a "Lost 20 pounds in 20 weeks challenge."  I could use one of those again this year as I’m almost 30 pounds above where I’d like to be.

That being said, however, I’m going to try a couple of weeks of an informal diet.  I’m going to cut down on the snacking, eat less and focus on eating healthier food.  I’ll dine on more salads and snack on less junk food.

In addition, I’m going to try to work out more.  I think I’ll break out the EA Sports Active and break a sweat.  There are going to be two challenges for this.  The first is the cold weather.  With such a chill in the air, I’d much rather bundle under my Slanket and let my laptop warm up my lap.

The second reason is that I recently hurt my neck/back.  I seem to be prone to muscle spasms and, after playing some Nintendo Wii with the boys last week, I got a bad one.  The odd thing was that it wasn’t even a high-motion game.  (Kirby’s Epic Yarn – you use the WiiMote like a normal video game controller.)

It’s been over a week now and I’m still sore and achy.  My neck still hurts when I move it and I get shooting pains down my right arm.  I’m not going to let that stop me, but I will take it easy at first.

My other change, rather than not going with a formal diet, is that I’m not going to update every week.  Honestly, for some of my "20 pounds in 20 days" posts, I began to reach for content.  I couldn’t think of anything to say other than "Hey, I lost another pound this week."  While it was nice to know just what I was posting about, I’d rather have more substantial posts.  So I’m just going to post an update every first Monday of the month instead of every Monday.  I may also put something on the sidebar to help keep track of my weight loss.

So that’s my plan.  Wish me luck.

Disclaimer: The body scale clipart above comes from OpenClipArt.org.

20 Pounds In 20 Weeks: Week 20: Final Check In

20lbs in 20 weeks, Fitness, Weight Loss
Starting Weight 205
Current Weight 182
Goal Weight 185
Lost 23
Left Until Goal 0

This is the final update in my 20 Pounds in 20 Weeks Challenge.  I hit my goal last week, so this week was mainly about making sure I didn’t slide back above it.

Not only didn’t I slide back above my goal weight, but I shed two and a half additional pounds.  I’m ending this challenge a full three pounds below my goal and twenty three pounds above where I was when I began.

During this challenge, I was using Google Documents to keep track of my points and weigh-ins.  I began using a regular spreadsheet, but quickly realized I’d need to be able to update it no matter which computer I was on.  I switched to Google Documents and it was great.  One of the nice fringe benefits was the ability to generate charts on my weigh-in data and easily export them as images.

Here’s a chart of my weigh-ins from beginning to end.  (Click to enlarge it.)

weight_loss_chart

You can see spikes for Disney World, Passover and JSL’s birthday.  Otherwise, it was a pretty steady drop.

Over the next few weeks, I plan to keep eating healthy, but I’m not going to hold as rigidly to the points structure as I did during the Twenty Week Challenge.  Perhaps I’ll check back in in another 20 weeks (that’d be in late October) to see how I’m doing at keeping the weight off.

20 Pounds In 20 Weeks: Week 18: Finish Line In Sight

20lbs in 20 weeks, Fitness, Weight Loss
Starting Weight 205
Current Weight 186
Goal Weight 185
Lost 19
Left Until Goal 1

Just a quick post to note that I’m closing in on my goal.  I’m a single, solitary pound away from calling this challenge a success.  I suppose I should be happier about this, but I’m not.  Ok, I am happy about it, but it’s not brightening my mood much.  The reason why will be clear in my next post.  Here’s hoping my mood lightens more so I can celebrate next week when (crossing fingers) I hit 185.

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