Workout Wednesday- Setting Up YourShape: Fitness Evolved on the Kinect

I won’t lie. We played with the Kinect a lot this weekend. Between the kids wanting to play and setting up profiles for everyone in the family, I wasn’t sure that I’d get time to actually try YourShape! Eventually I had to send everyone upstairs for dedicated Mommy time with the Kinect.

The first thing I had to do was set up my YourShape profile. I found that it was fast and easy which was not the case in setting up users for other games and you can see almost all of the setup process in this video.

The Kinect sensor made it easy to set up my personal profile because it operates on facial and skeletal recognition. I was impressed that as the kids entered the game space, that Kinect was smart enough to know that their measurements didn’t match mine.

After I set up my profile, I played some games with the kids. We played a game called Light Race that’s like the classic Simon game but done by tapping parts of the floor with your feet. It’s a tricky game that requires quick thinking and dexterity. By the end my heart rate was definitely elevated! Next I tried Cardio Boxing, a simulated boxing game that requires players to punch at different targets as they light up. The faster you punch, the more calories burned and the faster the squares reappear.

In all, I probably played for about 15-20 minutes and burned 229 calories playing two levels of each of the games.

Each week I’ll be sharing my progress in terms of calories burned, amount of play time, and any weight lost (or gained- gasp!) along with the totals for the 12 weeks that I’m hosting Workout Wednesdays and featuring YourShape on the Kinect.

Here’s a summary for this week:

• Weekly calories burned playing YourShape: 229
• Total play time: 15 minutes (weekly totals will be added to this each week)
• Total calories burned to date playing YourShape: 229
• Total overall play time: 15 minutes (weekly totals will be added to this each week)
• Weight lost: 0 lbs (I’m just starting out. Give me a break!)

Next week I’ll be sharing how my personal training sessions are going with the virtual YourShape trainer!

Please leave any questions you have about Kinect or YourShape in the comments! If you’d like me to email you a reply, in addition to me leaving it in the comments, include your email address or Twitter handle. Thanks!

Note: If you are concerned about personal information from the body scan being transmitted elsewhere from your Xbox, Microsoft assured me it stays on the hard drive to preserve personal privacy. Phew! It is reassuring to know my body scan is staying on our own Xbox and won’t be transmitted elsewhere through an automatic upload!

Ubisoft provided me with a copy of Your Shape: Fitness Evolved and is sponsoring this series of reviews, though the opinions I’ve expressed here are solely my own and represent my honest viewpoint. Ubisoft, Clever Girls Collective and I promote Blog With Integrity. Xbox 360 and Kinect were provided by Microsoft for review purposes.