DDR Workout

I struggle with my weight - I'm sedentary by job and habit, like to eat too much and don't exercise enough. I can get obsessed with video/computer games and it gets worse: long hours spent sitting nearly motionless, twitching fingers and not much else; I can tune out the physical and focus on the game way too much.

We got a Wii dance game (Hottest Party 2) with a dance pad, and my semi-obsessive video game disorder has turned into a benefit. The Wii version uses the pad to track your feet using Up, Down, Left and Right arrows. It also uses a motion sensor in each hand, so hand motions are included. On top of the scrolling list of hand and foot motions that you have to respond to, if you pump your hands to the beat it counts that and increases a hand bonus every 10th time.

I've played versions that were feet only and I found myself crouching down, reaching the buttons with my feet in an odd non-dancing posture. Somehow the inclusion of the hand input, and the increased score for tracking the beat with your hands, has me standing and moving more to the beat, much more like dancing than the foot only games. Now my mildly obsessive game instincts can kick in and I can burn up 350 calories while geeking out on the video game, a much healthier option than the normal motionless video or PC game.

The game will calculate the number of calories from your hand and foot motions and keep a running total for you, counting down against a target. Fast songs with lots of double foot buttons require jumping with both feet, which consumes calories faster and leaves you sweaty and breathing hard. Then throw in cognitive challenges like red negated buttons that penalize you if you tap your foot on the button, and hidden ones that show up suddenly, and wild cards that can be performed with hand or foot. You need to get in the flow, responding to the arrows as they scroll up the screen, figuring out the jumps in time, and keep the beat solidly with your hands.

One oddity of the DDR weight loss plan is that you are totally at the mercy of the game when it comes to song selection. I've listened to an awful lot of covers over and over - the Michael Jackson song "Black & White" is featured prominently, covered by somebody I've never heard of. Bust A Move and a few others are by original performers. I usually dance through ten or so songs, perhaps 2 minutes and a few seconds per song to reach my target in the low 300 calories. It's surprisingly satisfying to land a quadruple jump series while continuing to pump your hands to the beat and rack up a high score on one of the difficult settings, as your heart pounds and the sweat drips off of you. Now if I can just moderate my food intake the additional activity will probaby lead to some weight loss, or so I can hope...