Gamercise Me - Can games really help weight loss?

My name is Luke Collins, and I'm overweight. I'm 31, 5'10'', and 280 pounds. I don't have a problem with exercising and eating right in the first place, just sticking with those things.

Well I like gaming, and my family and I have collected quite a few exercise games for the Wii and the Xbox 360 in the past few months, and I'm actually liking a lot of these games as well. Thus I am seeing if doing lots of exercising in the games can help me lose weight. And I'm posting this here and elsewhere, seeing if

Aside from the occasional walk, all the exercising I do will be with exercise games. No gyms, and no special diets. Not that I won't take out fattening foods, but I won't be replacing meat with tofu either (plus turkey meat is also healthy and tastier).

For the first week, I'm spending a half hour each day playing these games, and then adding fifteen minutes every week until I get to two hours. If this works, and I start seeing results by then, I'll be sticking with two hours a day until I get to below 200 pounds, and then sticking with an hour or so each day from then on.

In case you are curious, the exercise games, or at least those you can exercise to, my family owns are:

• The Biggest Loser (Wii and 360; actually that's the only such game we have for the 360 so far, so the rest listed here are for the Wii)
• Daisy Fuentes Pilates (although that's my sister's, so I'm not sure I'll try that for a while)
• Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party 3 (unfortunately we live on a second floor apartment, so we can't use it that much)
• EA Sports Active (bought used, since... let's just say I don't want to give EA my money right now)
• Gold's Gym Cardio Workout
• Gold's Gym Dance Workout
• Jillian Micheals Fitness Ultimatum 2009 (although that's also my sister's, so I'm not sure I'll try that for a while)
• Jillian Micheals Fitness Ultimatum 2010 (see above)
• Mario Power Tennis (even though it's lighter than most)
• We Cheer
• We Cheer 2 (probably my favorite of these, and partly even for the right reasons)
• Wii Fit Plus
• Wii Sports
• Zumba Fitness

This is a picture of how I look now, and I'll take another picture every month, but posting other updates every week.

Yes, Dance Dance Revolution can help you lose weight, though jogging might be easier, I know people who have gotten results from the game.

Finished the first week of my gaming exercise experiment, so this is the update.

Games I played each day:

• Monday: We Cheer. Still haven't mastered the timing for that game, but I did break a sweat trying.
• Tuesday: Gold's Gym Dance Workout. Also started sweating after the first few songs.
• Wednesday: Skipped. I had some shopping to do, but since the grocery story was in walking distance, I usually walk there. But had to hurry, as there were rain clouds in the sky. I managed to get home before it ran, but it was still about 3-4 miles total at a hurried pace. My sister recommended I just count that as a workout this day due to that.
• Thursday: DDR Hottest Party 3. It was a good thing I waited until then, as my legs were still a little sore from walking the day before. So I started off with the lighter songs to get a warmup, and try to get adjusted to the "down" button on the pad (my biggest problem due to our carpet often moving the pad as we play). The more intense songs did leave me sweating by the time I was done.
• Friday: Skipped. More shopping. I didn't walk as far, but when I got home, I realized I forgot a few things, so had to walk back there all over again.
• Saturday: We Cheer 2. Spent some time beating three and four star songs, which was good cardio.
• Sunday: Wii Fit. Finished this week with a more rounded workout. I did a few Yoga moves to warmup, some of the strength moves, some of the cardio boxing, and did the "Lotus Focus" as a cool down.

All in all, was a good warmup week. My biggest issue is getting myself to drink enough water, which I'll make sure to work on this week. Will also make sure to have better portion control this week as well. It's also of course where I move into 45 minutes each workout.

Now I am posting this in multiple sites, to see what advice as many of you as possible can give, and I got some good tips. One was to not go for the full two hours, as just one is easier to stick with. I can understand that, as some exercise experts have stated it's not always the length of the workout, but the intensity. If some of you agree, I'll keep my time to an hour, but build up how hard each one is.

Finally, my family got Just Dance 2, which adds another game to this list. Will report on how it works next week.

Yes. I'd suggest going for shorter amounts of time each day, but make sure they're high-intensity periods.

Also, hydrate!

"Also, hydrate!"

And I just took a drink after reading that. Seriously, I did. Thank you for the reminder.

No worries.

That's a big thing to remember with exercise.

Sorry this is a day late. Anyway, finished week two of this experiment. Found a bunch of speed bumps, but looking at those just makes me more determined (plus I've heard the second week is often one of the toughest). I did the time upgrade to 45 minutes, and of course felt more burn and sweating from the extra time. It felt good, even if more sore at points.

I also added Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party 2 to my gamercise collection, and later on would like to get the current DDR Wii game, just for a second mat.

Games I played each day:

• Monday: Just Dance 2, which turned out to be surprisingly intense, as well as fun.
• Tuesday: Gold's Gym Dance Workout. Got about 500 calories burned, according to the scoring on that game, and it felt at least that much.
• Wednesday: Ended up as a skip day, since I've gotten plenty of advice not to do this every day.
• Thurdsay: Didn't want this to be a skip day, but it happened. Don't want to talk about why.
• Friday: Got DDR HP 2, and tried that out. Had to turn off all the fancy stuff after the first song though. Even though the weight loss is more important than the score, I still have to know what I am doing.
• Saturday: Moved furniture as exercise. My mother and sister needed new dressers, so we had to take out the old ones and put the new ones together.
• Sunday: Just Dance 2 again.

Still need to remind myself to drink more water, and did feel "off" some of these days, but I'm not feeling discouraged. I'm up to an hour next week, and then seeing if I should increase the time after that or the intensity.

edited 1st Mar '11 8:38:41 AM by DragonQuestZ

Good luck with what you're doing, but if you seriously bought the Wii because you drank Nintendo's diet Kool-Aid (it does not help you lose weight, 95% of the games can be played sitting on the couch, the motion games don't require a great range of movement, and the controllers are VERY LIGHT) then you must be a sad, gullible parent. The Wii is a GREAT game console, and everyone should buy it for that merit.

There's no real proof you can lose weight from videogames, and all the attempts at doing it are squandering your time to get some real excersise in.

Alternatively you can start doing what I'm doing (I just recently started because I'm worried about my future. I'm 265, need to get down to 185) and quit eating junk and RUN OUTSIDE EVERY CHANCE YOU GET, at least try and spend an hour outside every day. Do crunches, sit-ups and pushups, I reccomend Perfect Pushup, works for me.

edited 1st Mar '11 8:47:55 AM by chocoboxxx

Dance Dance Revolution, Pump It Up, In The Groove, etc., are basically just jogging in place to music so I don't see how that's not a workout. Although, to achieve the same effect as jogging for a half hour, you'll have to play about 15-20 Nintendo Hard songs  ^*

edited 1st Mar '11 11:05:15 AM by TsundeRay

I don't have kids yet, and I bought it for the games. Just after finding out we could actually get a workout with games like We Cheer, did we seriously go for the other games. Calling that proverbial kool-aid seems like hating on the Wii.

Duuuuuude....Don't YOU EVEN GO THERE. I F*CKING LOVE THE WII AND BUY ALMOST EVERY NEW GAME NINTENDO MAKES FOR IT.L= THE WII IS THE SECOND GREATEST SYSTEM OF ALL TIME. OF ALL TIME! (sorry taylor swift but your video sucks)

This being said, Nintendo kinda said some non-truths to get people to buy these things, the chief offender being that it will help you lose weight. And while the jury's still out, Wii Fit has been proven to be inaccurate, and no real positive results have been shown.

All I'm trying to say is that people should buy the Wii for it's great games, and for that alone. No superficial reasons necessary.

And PLEASE prove me wrong on this. I'm being serious, I support what you're trying to do, I just think you're doing it the wrong way. But if this works, I will eat my socks and be extremely happy for you. I hate being overweight, and I guess you do to, so here's to (as Strong Bad would say) do-sum-bow-dis!

Good luck, bro.

edited 1st Mar '11 12:48:24 PM by chocoboxxx

First of all, this is why qualifiers are important in posts like that. I've learned that the hard way.

Second of all, Wii Fit seems like it doesn't do much, until you try the more intense workouts for over 20 minutes. Then you start to sweat and "feel the burn". So I know it can do something. The think here is to see how much.

DDR is slightly more intensive than jogging because of the jumps and whatnot.

True, but you tend to have pretty long breaks between songs (depending on version, 30 seconds to a minute and a half, unless you're at home rather than arcade in which case you have all the time in the world to pick songs), and as I mentioned you need to play a lot of songs—preferably your personal Those Several Levels—to get the daily recommended amount of cardiovascular activity.

(has not played home DDR in 8 years ;A;)

edited 1st Mar '11 6:33:08 PM by TsundeRay

The breaks are important, as they mean I get to rest my legs for a little bit in between the songs.

I haven't played it intensively at home for about four or five. Now that my PS 2 is missing the output cable needed to get sound and visuals from the fucking thing I can't play it...Until I buy a new one...Shouldn't too hard. The universal cords are 14 dollars a pop.

While I was never in awesome shape I at least had stamina I would consider to be decent. I used to be able to play the thing for an hour or two without a break. I'd play songs that kicked my ass for a couple of minutes and play easier songs to cool down a bit. Then I'd grow truly too tired and stop playing. I also had regular P.E. where I ran and did various exercises. Then I reached high school... Now I can get through one full set of songs. Maybe two or three depending on the songs in particular. This depresses me...

edited 1st Mar '11 7:09:23 PM by Aondeug

I know from personal experience that DDR works wonders for staying in shape. However, if you're going with an exercise regiment, I would recommend not using weight (or anything based on weight, such as BMI) as your indicator, because you'll gain muscle mass. And if your weight is suddenly dropping, it's also likely to be water loss from sweating, which can mean you're not hydrating yourself enough. I actually seem to get a net gain in weight from DDR due to my leg muscles gaining mass faster than I lose it in fatty tissue.

edited 1st Mar '11 10:52:35 PM by Poochy.EXE

This is why I'm instead relying on a picture of myself every four weeks instead of the scale alone.

Got a couple more dance games, including Dance on Broadway (which is very similar to Just Dance, just with polygon dancers instead of rotoscoped ones) and the latest DDR for the Wii, which was for sale this week, so I did get a second mat.

Games I played each day:

• Monday: We Cheer 1 and then 2.
• Tuesday: That was my off day.
• Wednesday: More furniture moving, as the other dresser came in.
• Thursday: Wii Fit.
• Friday: Had some Spring Cleaning to do.
• Saturday: Played the new DDR game we got, and then DDR HP2.
• Sunday: Dance on Broadway, and then We Cheer 1.

So this week I stay with an hour, but ramp up the intensity.

There's a setback. The scale says I barely lost anything, and my new picture shows barely any change from the first one.

Does this mean this doesn't work? Not necessarily. I'm taking personal responsibility for this. I tend to procrastinate, which meant I would work out too late, and took more off days than I should have. I also didn't really exercise outside my comfort zone except for a few times. Okay for keeping in shape, but not good for losing weight. I didn't really watch what I ate as much as I should. But most importantly were the emotional and psychological reasons I gained weight in the first place, and I really had to sort a lot of that out this month.

So what might have made me just give up instead has made me more determined. It seems I do have to go above an hour a day, to make sure I burn enough calories, and I also have to start counting calories as well (I stated from the beginning I should take out fattening foods). Plus I also have Wii-compatible weights I'm adding for some of the games.

So this first month, wasn't quite a wash. It was just me showing myself I can do this. Now it's me actually doing this.

The games I worked out to this week:

• Monday: We Cheer 2

• Tuesday: Just Dance 2 (but for half an hour)

• Wednesday: Skip day

• Thursday: Gold's Gym Cardio Workout

• Friday: Gold's Gym Dance Workout

• Saturday: Skip day

• Sunday: Gold's Gym Cardio Workout (but for half an hour)

Okay, got up to five hours this week, but for a lot of the exercising, I didn't feel it. So next week I'm going to an hour and fifteen minutes. I also start counting calories that week. I sort of counted calories the previous week, but I want to be sure this week.

The games I worked out to this week:

• Monday: Gold's Gym Cardio, then Just Dance 2.

• Tuesday: DDR Extreme 2, DDR Max 2, Gold's Gym Cardio, Just Dance 2.

• Wednesday: DDR HP 3, Gold's Gym Cardio, Just Dance 2.

• Thursday: Gold's Gym Cardio, Gold's Gym Dance Workout.

• Friday: Off Day

• Saturday: Gold's Gym Cardio, Just Dance 2.

• Sunday: Off Day

^Try setting up some nonstop sets on DDR. nothing says workout like doing 5 songs back to back.