If you're looking to lose weight with a fun and entertaining exercise program that you can do from the privacy of your own home, you might want to consider the Nintendo Wii Fit. The key to weight loss is to burn more calories than you consume and using the Wii Fit can help. When you can find something that you like to do and can have fun with, exercise is less of a chore and you stay motivated. The Wii Fit system understands this and offers many different games to get you moving. You can do aerobic, flexibility, balance and resistance programs on the Wii Fit system. Combining daily exercise on the Wii Fit with a healthy eating plan will put you on the road to a slimmer you.
Free Run
The Free Run workout on the Wii Fit provides a simulated trail to run with a Wii character as your partner. A study conducted by John Porcari, PhD and Alexa Carroll, MS published in "ACE Fitness Matters" in 2009 found that the Free Run and Island Run workouts on the Nintendo Wii burn an average of 5.5 calories per minute. If done for a half an hour, the recommended amount of exercise per day, you could burn up to 165 calories.
Super Hoola Hoop
The Super Hoola Hoop workout works the hips, abdominals, obliques and large back muscles. The object of this game is to swing your hips around as if hoola hooping, but you must also keep your center of balance while more hoops are virtually thrown onto you. The object of this game is to burn calories as well as loosen the hips and work the core. In Porcari and Carroll's study the Super Hoola Hoop workout burned an average of 3.7 calories per minute.
Rhythm Boxing
The Rhythm Boxing workout touts itself as one of the best aerobic workouts on Wii Fit to burn calories. There are three different levels to this workout, both increasing duration and intensity. Following prompts, you are instructed to perform an upper body kickboxing workout with a variety of punch combinations. This workout keeps you moving and challenged.
Lunges
Another feature of the Nintendo Wii Fit is the ability to perform a resistance training program using your own body weight. Following your own personal trainer, you are guided to do lunges, both front and back and side to side. Using the Wii balance board, you must use your core muscles to keep your center of gravity stabilized while performing lunges. A lunge exercise works all of the major muscles of the legs including the glutes, hamstrings and quadriceps. Increasing lean body mass through resistance training helps burn calories and increases your metabolism.
References
- "ACE Fitness Matters"; Wii Fit or Just a Wee Bit?; Alexa Carroll, M.S., John Porcari, PhD, and Carl Foster PhD; 2009
- WiiFit Routine.com
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