Can playing video games help your weight loss?

Surprisingly, the answer can be “yes”.  Believe it or not, video game systems like Nintendo Wii^® or Xbox Kinect^®, which use sensors to track body motion, can help you lose weight.  Some popular games like Dance, Dance Revolution, and others, require a far greater degree of continual motion than the old fashion, controller based games.

Playing these games doesn’t replace playing outside as far as the amount of calories burned.  However, scientists have compared the energy used in playing on a Kinect or Wii to the energy used on a treadmill.  They found that playing a game on a medium level was like walking at a 15 minute per mile pace.  At that rate, an average person weighing 175-180 pounds would burn 100 calories in around 15 minutes.

This is just another example where any activity can help you burn more calories and lose weight.

We, at Anvanca^® define exercise as any activity which requires effort over a period of time.  Any effort or movement requires energy, and energy requires the body to burn calories, which can help you lose weight.  It becomes exercise, when this effort is maintained over time.  For many, this is a shift in thinking.  Most people view weight loss exercise as something you do at the gym, or as part of a daily routine outside.  In reality, exercise can be something as simple as cleaning the house, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, or parking farther away from your destination so you have to walk a few extra minutes.    The great news is that when it comes to weight loss exercise, your body cannot tell the difference.  For the most part, a calorie is a calorie.

The intensity of the effort is a measure of how fast you will burn calories, but the total amount of calories burned depends on how long you keep up the effort.  For example, you will burn more calories per minute jogging vs. cleaning the house, but 15 minutes of cleaning burns more total calories than 5 minutes jogging.  What’s the moral to the story?  Get up and move.  Anything besides sitting down burns something and even a little something over an extended period of time can make a difference.