Workout du Jour: Hula Workout for Weight Loss

I bet you thought I'd never get off my couch and exercise! I thought so too. Instead of doing 3 days a week or something like that I've just been trying to be more active in general. I like to play a game of Zumba on the Wii when I have 20 minutes, or walk to the park instead of drive, or, as I did tonight, try out a new workout dvd.

I love the way Hilary does her workout reviews so I'm totally copying her on this, I know. :)

Today I did Weight Loss Hula Workout with Kili from a company called Natural Journeys . You'll probably see a variety of workouts on here. I like to do all types of workouts, especially dance related videos and have some old school Paula Abdul as well as the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders workouts all lined up in my Netflix queue. :)

Total video time: 31 minutes, though the first couple of minutes is Kili showing you the hula dance you will be learning, still a good 29-30 minutes.

Intensity: Low. This is definitely something I think anyone at any stage can do. It's a bit rough on the knees so if you have knee problems you may want to avoid it for now or do a modified version (which she doesn't show).

Total Calories burned: I have no freaking idea! Hilary has this cool app thing that tells you but I don't. I'm guessing not a ton. I checked out a website that had a calorie calculator thing and when I submitted the information (I marked it as light dancing) it said I burned 192 calories. Not bad. Hopefully that makes up for the peanut butter bar I just ate. Oops! It's all Hilary's fault! (Just teasing Hil) :)

- Weights: This category is n/a because there are no weights in this workout
- Cardio: ** This was definitely some good cardio. She mixed some modern
aerobics into the hula routine, especially in the last section.
- Sweaty: * Not too bad actually. I broke a little sweat during the last part
but overall it was a good low impact workout.

This is definitely a great workout for a beginner (me!).

Favorite part: If you are a former dancer/cheerleader like me and love to perform than you will really like this video. I loved that we got to learn the dance moves and then perform the whole thing at the end. I am not a hula master by any means after this one video but it was fun to do.

Least Favorite Part: The whole video is filmed with narration instead of her talking to you which I found I didn't really care for. Some of the more modern aerobics she put in felt awkward since I thought we were learning to hula but they were good for the workout.

If you've been doing the 30 Day Shred for a while and want something fun and low impact then give this one a try. I checked it out from the local library and while I did enjoy it I think it will be going back in the library bag to return. I guess it doesn't have that great of re-play value for me. She does, however, have a whole series of hula workouts so I'd definitely be up for giving another one a try.

I hope this helped you out. I'm going to try and do this on a weekly basis because then it will motivate me to actually TRY some of these videos I have or borrow. If you have been wondering about any workout videos out there leave a comment and I'll try to get a copy and do a review.

*This isn't the exact dvd but it will give you a good idea of some of the features I talked about.