Many exercise classes use special heavy-weight hula hoops to increase the cardio workout and to burn more calories. High intensity aerobic exercise burns up to 400 calories during the same amount of time.

One of the benefits of hula hooping is that it can be done by people who are overweight – just try a high-intensity aerobic class if you’re carrying 50 extra pounds. It puts too much strain on your knees and ankles, and if you’re really out of shape you’ll run out of breath long before the class is over.

On the other hand, you can start hooping at home, get the old body moving again slowly, and work up to a more rigorous exercise routine in a few months.

Another reason why overweight people have trouble with any exercise program, even simple walking, is that the foods that make us fat also slow us down. That’s because sugar, refined grain products, simple carbohydrates and other fattening foods don’t just cause our bodies to store extra fat. That in itself would be bad enough.

But these foods actually cause fat and fat-soluble vitamins to be locked up in our fat cells, where other cells in the body can’t get to them.

You may be eating enough food to put on an extra pound a week, but the individual cells in your muscles and organs could be starving, because all the fuel and nutrients are locked away. Starving people slow down in order to conserve the small amount of fuel they have available to them.

That’s why both overweight people and people on low-calorie and low-fat diets often suffer from chronic fatigue and depression – it’s the body’s way of slowing you down. If you aren’t moving, there’s less demand for fuel.

Exercising when you’re overweight, even if you use a low-impact aerobic exercise like hula hooping, will burn more calories, and that means your starving cells will have even less fuel and nutrients to keep all their various functions going. So you get even more tired, and you could even get more depressed.

Let’s face it – if you eat the wrong foods, the individual cells in your body are on a low-calorie diet no matter how much food you eat, and studies done many years ago proved that fatigue and depression (and food cravings) are symptoms that you experience on a low-calorie diet. Exercise can make it even worse.

So – my advice is to eat a sensible, healthy diet that unlocks those fat cells, and then take up a nice, low-impact exercise. Hula hooping is one of the easiest, and most enjoyable exercises to start with, because it will make you feel like a kid again.

Hula hoops are more than just toys for kids.

They can be a fun way for adults to exercise and achieve fitness in a low impact way. Hoops can be used in many different hula hoop exercises for flexibility and to build muscle and help foster coordination in movement.

The basic hula hoop maneuver is good for toning the waist and flexing the hip joints. This is performed with the large, standard size hula hoop around the waist. The hips are then rotated in a circular motion to get the hoop rotating around the waistline. To add to the exercise, continue the motion but balance first on one foot and then on the other.

This is harder than it sounds, so start by slightly lifting one foot off the ground and then progress to holding the leg out to the side and eventually straight out in front. This does wonders for balance and works thigh and calf muscles as well. Also, you can progress to using more than one hoop at a time.

The back and neck get a workout by using the hoop around the neck. These types of hula hoop exercises help strengthening little used muscles like those of the neck and also promote spinal flexibility. Begin to do this exercise leaning forward. Get the hoop going around the neck with a push from your hands and then use your upper torso and neck to continue the rotation. After a couple of minutes, reverse the direction.

The advanced form of the neck exercise is to gradually work to standing up straight and still keeping the hoop going. To add more as you get good at this, add one or more additional hoops. At first, it is easier to move all the hoops together, but with practice you can probably stagger them which certainly looks more impressive.

Smaller hoops can be used and twirled around the arms and ankles. With practice, a person can have one or more hoops around the waist, one on each arm and one around an ankle with one foot elevated. This takes really good balance, and usually another person to help get them on.

Don’t despair if you have trouble getting hoops rotating. There are hula hoop exercises that don’t swirl at all! You can use a hula hoop to keep arms raised and extended while doing lunges or stretches. This burns more calories and helps to tone arm muscles.

Hula hoops can also be placed on the floor and used as zones to jump into and out again. They can even be used as props in dance exercises or aerobics. The really skilled and flexible can use a hula hoop like a jump rope and skip in a crouched position. This is really challenging but also a terrific workout.

Finally, there’s the old kid’s trick that started with barrel hoops using a stick to roll the hoop around the gym or outside while running. There is almost no limit to the fun and good exercise moves that can be done with a few simple hula hoops. Be creative and enjoy your workouts even more!