The DDR Diet » Diet Tip

Diet Tip: Toss out the Soda!

DDR Diet — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 23:46:07 +0000

Some people call it “soda,” and some call it “pop,” but whatever you call it, it’ll kill your diet! Soda contains tons of calories, sugars, and caffeine, and has pretty much zero nutritional value. The calories and sugars will add to your weight, and the caffeine isn’t good for you either.

Rather than drinking soda, which dehydrates you, think about drinking water when DDRing. It’ll probably improve your performance as well as your diet progress.

I’ve slowly been phasing out soda and drinking water and occasionally sports drinks instead. I wouldn’t drink Gatorade all the time though, because sports drinks have quite a few calories and sugars themselves. I’d have to say that, overall, not drinking so much soda has helped me feel better and has contributed to my weight loss.

Dance Dance Revolution Tip: Workout Mode Review

DDR Diet — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 20:51:06 +0000

So yesterday I said I’d take a day off. Instead, I just kinda took it easy today and checked out DDR Extreme’s workout mode. I didn’t use workout mode in DDR before because it meant that my high scores wouldn’t be loaded. This was in DDR Max and Max2 I think. Anyway, that’s all different now in Extreme. You can simply set your weight and the game will calculate how many calories you burn in the normal game mode!

After you finish playing, you can go into the workout mode screen and check out the number of calories burned, the number of songs you played, average calories burned per song, and the equivalent amount of work it would take to burn those calories by jogging, jumping rope, or swimming. I dunno how accurate the workout mode really is though. I’ve jogged a mile before, and it doesn’t really seem like the amount of DDR I played today would equal 2 of those… Then again, I’m probably more in shape than I was before, so maybe it’s true.

Either way, the Workout mode for DDR Extreme is a pretty cool tool for keeping track of how much exercise you get from session to session.

Diet Tip: Calories – Burn more and eat less!

DDR Diet — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 01:27:30 +0000

Okay, so sure enough, it’s been pointed out that the title “DDR Diet” is kind of a misnomer. The Dance Dance Revolution part is really exercise, and you can choose to diet as well in order to lose weight. There are lots of ways to lose weight, but a combination of both regular exercise and dieting is the best way to go.

Here’s a bit of weight loss 101:

Calories are a unit of energy. It takes one calorie to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water 1 degree Celcius. Usually the nutrition labels on food will list the number of calories in kilocalories, which just means that 1 food Calorie = 1000 “real” calories.

The human body takes a number of calories each day to keep it functioning. In a day, you will burn anywhere from 2000 to 4000 Calories in one day. In order to lose weight, you need to end up using more Calories than you add to your body. When that happens, your body will go to its fat reserves for the extra needed calories.

You can lose weight by either consuming less Calories, burning more Calories, or both. Most home versions of Dance Dance Revolution have a workout mode that lets you keep track of how many Calories you’re burning. Combined with the nutritional information found on most food, you can find out if you’re burning more calories than you’re gaining. If so, then you’re on the right track to start losing weight with DDR!

When you both diet and exercise, you can lose weight faster! If you’ve been trying to use DDR to lose weight, but you haven’t tried actually dieting yet, try eating less calories. Your body will use more of its fat for calories, and you’ll start losing weight faster.

(Note: I’m no dietician, so before you decide to go through with any diet plan, be sure to consult with a real doctor or nutritionist to make sure the plan is right for you.)