Stay Healthy and Lose Weight Playing Video Games

It may sound crazy but there is a sure fire way to fit in your cardio workout and trim off those extra pounds by playing playing video games. What's the catch? Well, to be successful, you need 2 things. An exercise bike, and your favorite video game. Many people already have both of these laying around the house or in the garage but just haven't thought of combining the two.

It's time to drag that old exercise bike out of the garage and into your living room. You will want to set it up between 5 and 7 feet away from the front of your television set. If you have a wireless controller and want to be back a bit more, you can do that as well.

As for the video games, you won't be able to pull it off with an older system as most of the games are difficult and have short levels. This will work great with a Playstation 2 or 3 or an Xbox or Xbox 360. The best games are ones that you love to play and that will keep your interest for 30 minutes to an hour. It's best to start off with no more than 30 minutes if you haven't had much exercise in a while. Sports games with long periods of play work wonderfully and you barely even know you are exercising while you play them. Football and Golf games work particularly well since a complete football game or round of golf typically takes the right length of time to get a good workout. Many games allow you to adjust the length of the quarters and decide between 9 and 18 holes so you can tailor the gameplay length to your desired workout.

Role-Playing Games work just as good but you need to set a goal for yourself before you begin. You might want to gain 5 experience levels, get through a dungeon, or travel from one city to another. You want to avoid action and fighting games because they usually require a lot of button mashing and that just doesn't work if you want to ride your exercise bike safely.

You don't necessarily need to use a bike either. A stepper or a cross country machine will work just fine as well. Time really flies while you are playing a video game. It's much faster than listening to music or watching television while you exercise.

The best thing about playing video games while you exercise is that you can set up a regimen for the entire family and usually won't be met with too much protest. This can lead to great health and well being for children and adults alike. A great motivator is competition. If everyone in the family plays the same game, you can record your scores on the fridge or calendar and have some kind of reward system in place such as a new game, cash, or other rewards for the weekly winner. You can have two categories also. The person with the most time exercising and the person with the best overall score in their game can each win a separate reward.

You need to use imagination to exercise effectively and this is a great way to do it and have fun. Before you know it, you will feel and look a lot better than you did when you started.