Is this good?

[ptcruisn56]

Yea I know, another one of these, is my plan good things. Hopefully you guys can help, you seem very helpful.

Anyway I have finally saved up enough money and will be getting a PS2, DDR Max 2, and at least one mat.

So I have a few questions and I have my plan.

So first of all my questions.

1. Is it better to do workout mode, or just do the songs regular?

2. How many songs should I do and for how long?

3. Every day? Every other day?

Anyway for my plan. Only really want to lose about 20-30 pounds (I'm 215).

1. I'd eat less, not horrible. I don't want to go on a diet I just want to eat less. Cut out soda. Should I cut it out completely or can I just have diet, or just have like 1 every other day. What foods should I avoid? Still I know I need to give up a few things, but I don't want to torture myself.

2. 3 sets of 80 crunches/situps. 1 set of pushups and occasional weights.

3. I'm still wondering how much or how long I should DDR.

I hope this all helps and I hope I can get some tips. I also know not to expect a really fast change. Maybe like 2 pounds or so a week if even. The best ways to get thin are slow and steady.

Oh and BTW is drinking a lot of water when I am hungry good for me? I heard that it was but wanted to know what you guys think?

When I get my stuff I'll put a picture up of me.

I'm really excited, thanks for helping me out!

[abrannan]

For your DDR q's:
It doesn't really matter whether or not you do workout mode. The benefits for workout mode are that the game doesn't stop if you fail a song, you just keep going, and it tracks an estimated number of calories burnt (though it's not particularly accurate). The disadvantages are that basically the songs you pass don't count. The scores aren't kept and they don't count towards unlocking the hidden songs.

I'd make sure you play a minimum of 30-45 minutes (20-30 songs) every day or every other day, at an intensity level that gets your heart pounding well, and builds up a good sweat. Take one day off every week to allow your body some rest/recuperation time.

Your other questions:

If you're reducing the amount fo food you eat, you're on a diet. That doesn't have to be a bad thing, and you don't have to put yourself througha lot of pain. Yes, I would cut out soda completely if you can, have only diet if you can't stop completely. Keep track of your current eating habits for about a week. Write down every last thing you eat, and figure out about how many calories per day you've been eating. That will help you figure out how much food to cut out, and what foods are giving you too many calories in too small of a package. You can still eat decent quantities of food on a diet, you just have to be a little more careful about what foods you choose. You already know what foods are good and bad for you, just make better choices most of the time, and your average intake will start to drop.

Regarding your exercise plan. If you're planning on doing that many sit ups/crunches a day (240 by my count). I hope 1) you're already doing a lot of sit ups, 'cause you cant go from 0-60 on a dime like that 2) you realize that you can't spot reduce and doing a lot of exercises in the stomach area isn't going to burn stomach fat any more or less than any other exercise.

The abs are a fairly small mucle group, even if you double their size, you're probably talking about maybe another 3 pounds of muscle. That's only an additional 150 calories burnt per day. However, if you work your larger muscle groups (quads in particular, pecs, glutes, triceps and biceps) and manage to double those in size, you'll put on a lot more than 3 pounds of muscle, and you'll burn a lot more than an extra 150 calories per day. Squats are a great exercise for this, they work your quads and glutes, and you back and arm muscles if you're doing them with weights. The other benefit to working larger muscle groups is that the amount of muscle building hormones you release is proportional to the size of the muscle you work, so your body will build more muscle all over.

Drinking water is very very good, but like all other things, don't go overboard. If you're chugging mass quantities of water, you're going to stretch your stomach out a bit. That leaves you feeling hungrier, because the same amount of food will take up less space in your stomach. But keeping a water bottle with you and sipping from it throughout the day is a good thing.

[ptcruisn56]

Yes I've been doing those sets of crunches since last December, so it won't be all of a sudden. I've worked up, it was at about 40 when I started. Thanks for your help it means a lot to me.