Wii Fitting Continues

So. I have no excuse. You know how sometimes when you have nothing to do, it's hard to even wrassle up the energy to do more nothing, i.e. video games. I did a quick body test this morning, and some other time recently, and I have a few things to note.

First, fun stuff happens in the opening menus! It snowed on Saturday. In the menu.
Rich and Andrew are the only other people who have Wii Fit profiles on my system, and since it's in my room, and they have a job and are 200 miles away, respectively, they never play. Wii Fit doesn't know that, though--it thinks they're lazy! Our Mii's line up in the beginning, so you can choose who you are, and what profile you're playing under. I stand in the middle and do showboaty things like warm-up jogs an yoga poses while Rich and Andy yawn and fall asleep standing up. The cows.

Next, I played a little Thanksgiving week, maybe Friday or Saturday morning. And my trainer greats me with a yawn and says she was out late. Now, maybe she was trying to demonstrate that sleep is a fitness factor almost as important as exercise, and maybe she explicitly said as much afterwards, and maybe she lives in a computer, but I thought she and I had an understanding. I play my video game alone in my room for exercise, not socialization.

Then, I had enough strength training credits to unlock the push-up challenge. You "challenge" your instructor to a push-up-off. It starts at 10, and since my shapely arms are 80% show and 20% go, that's where I started. The balance board can tell when you bend and straighten your arms (I guess your arms are supporting more weight when they're bent?) so you can't really cheat, except by doing girly push-ups with your knees on the ground.

So, there I am, completing my 10th girly push-up with my knees on the ground, and my trainer collapses on the floor, breathing heavily (I'm not kidding!) and says something about how strong I am. Either she's patronizing me (whisperingly, I think that's what's going on) or she's been having a lot of late nights in there. Either way, I'm considering putting up with man trainer's advances. It's so hard to find good help.

I, awhile ago, unlocked freestyle jogging and stepping- you just jog in place or step to your heart's content and sound comes out of the wiimote to track your progress or pace you. The idea is that you can turn on the TV and absentmindedly step up and down for 10 minutes and the board counts your steps. I put on music! Because I don't have a cable in my bedroom! But it was fun! Some of my jazzier step weren't counted though- the board is best at picking up even, deliberate movements. The wiimote clicks or chimes or counts at an ideal pace for step-counting, but I was stepping in rhythm with the music. I had so much relative fun, that I left the sound off and music on for extended hula hoops! That worked even better because I could hula along with the beat. I'm planning a photographic feature about rhythmic Wii Fit Hula Hooping. I think it will be instructive.

Hu-la hoops, thrown by my brother,
And my boyfriend, oh mi corazon
Hu-la hoops, cuz it's aerobic
To raise my heart rate, oh mi corazon*

I also did the freestyle job with music playing. I think all the jogging in place is making my calves all swollen, but I "ran" a mile in under 8 minutes, which is impressive for me, since the last time I tried running with any kind of earnestness, I got sick and walked home. I think I can safely attribute my time to my nintendoly-enhanced fitness. (Although, it might have had something to do with Victory Striking Again.)

*I can't help it if a song with historical/political substance is also really excellent for hula hooping.

Wii Fitting Continues

I know, you were all like, where were you yesterday, big lady? How about your "Ooh, I'm gonna play Wii Fit everyday and tell you all about it"? You didn't even tell me about anything yesterday!

Here's what happened: I slept until 11am like an unemployed person and then ate a bagel and watched an old TV show on my xbox360, which now allows you to watch streaming video from Netflix, which is great, watched 2 movies I've already seen on my xbox, ate 2 slices of pizza, then played Rock Band 2 on my xbox. Round about 11:30, I decided to take a break, and turned on a different video game system. That's 11:30pm- still yesterday. My wiggly balance board even said that it's nice to unwind with some games at the end of the day. My fitness age was 28 last night, and 41 this morning. So I've played once a day for nearly a week, and there's no way to tell if my health is improving.

The age, like in Brain Age, isn't based on your overall performance- it's based on 2 balance tests, chosen at random. Some of which I'm good at and some, like the "agility test," I'm not. In the agility test, you have to shift your body weight so that a little ball runs into some boxes on the screen. I can't seem to hit more than 14 boxes, but I can whip out a tombe, pas de bouree, glissade, grand jete (developpe) any day of the week. People define agility differently. The puppies were back again, in just about the same spot, so I suspect there isn't all that much variation in the stuff that happens around you during the run. There are fewer puppies on the longer run, which makes it stupid. The wiimote in the pocket is definitely the best way to get an accurate reading.

I've sort of developed a habit--starting off with aerobics, moving on to strength exercises and finishing off with yoga--and routines are supposed to be good for fitness. At least in that if you're used to doing something, you might keep doing it. So late last night, alone in my pajamas, I finish up the aerobic exercises with the little Miis. I pick out a strength exercise and lo and behold, man trainer is smiling and nodding his head, telling me that he's filling in for my usual trainer. In retrospect, it's a way to vary the game and make it more interesting for me, the player. At the time, I actually felt a little uncomfortable. What happened to lady trainer, and what are you doing in my room so late at night? I was so disconcerted that I botched the rowing squats. Needless to say, he was gone when I picked the next exercise. Besides being different sizes and shapes, the male and female trainers also have different training styles. They're both very positive and remind you to breathe and count with them, but lady has a calmer presence, while man is a little more up-beat, or pushy, depending on how much you were expecting to see him. They both have their own set of encouraging phrases they say at different times during the workout, and man trainer told me to visualize my ideal body...two times within one minute. Lady and me have our differences, but I think she's a little more professional. Even if she did ditch me last night.

Fun With Wii Fit, Part 1

I received Wii Fit about a month ago as a super cool birthday present.
I'm attempting to play it every day, at least for a week. So far, so good. Came home from ballet class last night and figured I couldn't get any smellier.

Wii Fit is like Brain Age in a lot of ways; there's the fitness age evaluation, you start off with a few different activities and unlock more as you go along, there's a helpful little animate whatsit to encourage you and provide tips. I really enjoyed Brain Age for about 4 days, and then a month later for about 3 days, and then I enjoyed the Sudoku side game. It's a great little game, and at some point, I even had the sense that I was adding and subtracting faster than I ever had, but addition and subtraction have very little bearing on my life. Body fitness is different from brain fitness, but Wii Fit is subject to some of Brain Age's pitfalls. I dislike push-ups a little bit more than I dislike fast-paced math operations, which is quite a bit, come to think of it. There are going to be some activities that some players aren't good at or just don't like, and this actually limits the amount of game to play quite a bit. The balance games are the most frivolous and colorful of all your options: they use the Miis on your system, and it's certainly amusing to see a little round version of your mom throw a shoe at your head--but you chuckle, marvel at how the board knew which way you were leaning, and then you're finished.

As actual exercise equipment, Wii Fit and the board have some real potential. Exercising at home always seems like a great idea, because there's only the one-time cost (rather than a membership for a gym) and then you're feet away from your shower and your bed. At-home workouts lack supervision and motivators. There have been times when I thought about trying leg lifts in my bedroom, but I know I never did enough reps or sets, or sets of reps or repeated set reps, and there was no one to demonstrate the form. The strength and yoga exercises in Wii Fit have instructors to demonstrate perfect form. I work with lady instructor and so far, have very few complaints. She does helpful things, like count for you and remind you to breathe. How is this different from a video, you ask? She also knows if you're wobbly, and if you stop doing the exercise. Instructors on film might be more energized and more or less dead behind the eyes, but if you decide to transfer to a couch-based workout halfway through the video, they've got no way of knowing.

Each activity takes about 2 minutes, and you get a token for each minute you spend, which is nice. They go into a fitness bank, which is round and occasionally wiggly and kind of cute, which I also like. You unlock more activities with more tokens--so even if you're not lowering your BMI or fitness age, you're lighting up little gray boxes, and as I've seen with the achievements on X-Box Live, that's enough to keep some people playing even games they don't like. At least until all the boxes are lit up.

Anyway, more information to come as I travel along my own fitness river in a bubble I steer by shifting my balance, metaphorically. I'm in the Normal BMI range, but my cute little Wii Fit Board thought I could stand to fit-it-up a little more. I think I'm supposed to lose 6 pounds to get to a healthier BMI. I'll try to spend about a half hour on the board a day, and we'll see what that does. Even if my heart rate doesn't rise enough to burn any calories, (which I suspect is very possible) it will be a half hour out of the day that I won't spend eating crumb cake...or will I?