Advice on Using Xbox 360 Kinect Fitness Evolved

This is the story about an Xbox Game : Your Shape: Fitness Evolved – Kinect and how I used it to change my shape , loose weight and regain some energy and a little self respect.

I have been promising to write this post for some months now. I have lost a lot of weight and slimmed down from busting out of 38” waist trousers to happily fitting 36” providing I wear a belt. I proved it was  possible to use the Your Shape: Fitness Evolved – Kinect to improve energy levels and to loose some weight.

YourShare_FitnessEvolves

 

It is worth bearing in mind that I am not a doctor nor am I some nutrional or fitness enthusiast who recommends sniffing 30 goji berries a day whilst running a half marathon. I am a married man with two young kids ,a full time job working for my clients  and I am a parish councillor. Let us be clear that I do not exactly overflow with an abundance of spare time ( or cash )

 

It started in May 2011 with a glimpse at my toes , or rather trying to glimpse my toe , and the realisation that I had to lift my foot forward to see past my belly. Hell I couldn’t even see my dick to pee when trying to use the toilet, things were not in good shape I was actually unimpressed with myself.

I had bought  Your Shape: Fitness Evolved – Kinect   in the year before and had not gotten ‘focussed’ to use it with any anger. I cant tell you when or how this began but I can see from my profile on yourshapecenter.com that  somewhere around May I kicked off and by August I was focused on a daily routine.

YourShapeCenter_Profile

 

This is not a review of the Game since you can find those across the net anywhere.  This is a post on what I did and how I progressed and what I did next.

In May I began light with a focus on doing not more than 30 minutes a day of a routine; no more than 100 calories of exercise for the first few weeks. I was out of shape and frankly the Personal Training ‘Light and Easy’ knackered me out. I selected the Zen routine ( Stream ) and would follow that then switch to the Personal Training choosing a cardio nice and easy routine. Each routine runs for 12 sessions daily and if you do more than one a day it doesnt count them. I would follow with the Punching Game then cool down with the Zen routine followed by the Stack Em Up game.  What I learnt was that it was “okay” to not hit the target repitions or to feel a little knackered and tired but not to be demoralised from this.

to recap :

  • 30 mins a day
  • warm up with Zen Stream
  • Main Personal Training Session : light and easy to start with
  • Games : Stack em up
  • Cool Down to Zen Stream

 

By June I was feeling more energised and that 100 Calories was a good warm up. I was switching up to Zen River :Complete for a full warm up then the next level up on the Personal Training ( I cant remember which one though ) and I would add some games ( Hoops and Punching ) then a little Cardio Bronze level and cool down with the Zen moves.  I was doing 30 minutes in the morning and again in the evening. I had signed up to the Yourshape center to track my achievements and this seemed to motivate me to keep hitting the new goals in the list.  I had measured myself on the Wii Fit and was only a little annoyed to see that as far as it was concerned I was 13st 6lbs and still obese. I continued to focus on the routines.

to recap

  • 60 mins a day split over the day
  • warm up with Zen Stream
  • Personal Training : cardio and toning
  • Games : Hoops and Punching
  • Cooldown : Zen River

 

In July I noticed the first change up in myself, pants were getting baggier and the shadows on my face had changed I was also finding that I was wanting to push to 300 calories per day of exercise my routine now consisted of Bronze Cardio complete to warm up then a personal training session then a silver or gold cardio session to keep adding on the calorie burn then a long session on the Zen Ocean or River to cool down with. I was now focussed on an hour in the morning and was setting my clock to wake me up at 6am so that I could get enough time ahead of the family. On the weekends I would add some session selections to keep the burn near 300 cals if I could. I also followed the Bollywood sessions even if they seemed to comically speedup when attempting to do them in double time; but for the completionist in me I got them done.  By July I was into 36” jeans and I was doing an hour of cardio and endurance routines each day and I had kicked the drink habit as well.

to recap

  • 60 mins in the morning , any extra in the evening
  • warm up with Bronze Cardio complete
  • Personal Training : cardio and strength building
  • Games : Hoops and punching
  • Cardio Boxing : Silver or Gole
  • cool down : Zen stream or river or ocean

YourShapeCenter_Profile_aug

 

In August I had begun downloading the additional Downloadable Content to extend the Cardio and Fitness routines focussing on at least 300 Calories in the day. By now I had added ‘RunKeeper’ to my iphone and was tracking any bike rides I was doing into town and back. I had also just ordered UFC Trainer ( and I will write up my thoughts on that another time ) the range of routines were pretty used up but I still had a number of Personal Training sessions for arm building and cardio to complete so they became the focus and I was trying to squeeze in at least 2hours a day into my routines, mostly an hour in the morning and another hour in the evening. I measured myself on the Wii-Fit and discovered I had dropped a Stone in the intervening weeks, that was a boost to my morale.

to recap

  • 90 mins through the day 60 mins in the morning , 30 mins in the afternoon
  • warm up with Cardio Bronze then Gold
  • Personal Training : DLC – Gstar and additional fitness routine
  • Games : Punching and Hoops
  • Cardio Boxing : Platinum and Gold
  • cool down : Zen

 

In September I had moved to using UFC Trainer alongside Fitness Evolved, but thats another blog post.

 

I have gone from 14st 6lbs in June to a little over 13st by the end of August and I had recovered my energy, my wardrobe oh and I can now see what I am doing when I stand to pee!

In the course of these activities I have occasionally tweeted and shared my experience and achievements ( though Raptr does a good job of helping here ) and have had encouragement as feedback  and a few questions along the way which hopefully I have helped to answer in this post.

 

What other things did I do to help with the weight loss ?

I stopped drinking beers and wine most nights and I had cut them  almost completely through July and August. I cut back my portions on meals  by a handful less on the plate, nothing scientific  , just a little less on my plate or in my bowl than I usually serve myself. I drank water in the morning before, during and after exercising and I took the stairs and walked  up escalators or  ran up  the stairs whenever I could.

I have a new goal for December and a new target to achieve,  if you are watching me tweet then you may see me head towards it that Goal.

If your thinking  you want to join in and kick some waistline and energy then please feel free to use the affiliate link from Amazon and earn me a few more pennies if you care to.

 

Thanks for reading.

Category: blog, Personal     Tagged: , ,

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4 Comments on “Advice on Using Xbox 360 Kinect Fitness Evolved”

  1. A good read. I bought the game a while back and wanted to see some real progress from others. This is proof enough for me to use it as a regular workout, because frankly, I’m out of shape… Thanks again!

  2. Pingback: Motivational Story – One Man’s Journey With Your Shape Fitness Evovled « Kinect Reviews and Interviews

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