3 Days and Counting

Sunday Morning, I turn off the media and nobody seems to care. No comments, no emails, I don't even know if anyone else has seen this site. If I were a conspiracy theorist I would find a good reason like the media companies not wanting to draw attention to my efforts because it might spark imitators, killing media revenues.

I can already tell this will be painful. In fact, I've been absorbing all the media I can as if I were taking a big, long, drink before my hike in the desert.

Wii Fit

I knew this was going to be a problem. If I'm giving up video games, but I need to keep working out, where does the Wii Fit fit?

In case you haven't tried this thing out, it is amazing! That's obviously not me in the photo. I'm not half that graceful, and I am about twice her weight on a good day.

I've only had the device and have been doing it for two days. To confess, this is not my first foray at mixing fitness and video games. I used Dance Dance Revolution on an Xbox 360 3 years ago to lose weight for a trip to Philmont. I'm sure I looked ridiculous, but an hour on the workout mode each day, and I was burning some serious calories and raising my heart rate.

Given that success, I was ecstatic when I learned the Wii-gen were coming out with a device that was fully focused on fitness. I pre-ordered, and mine was delivered on the official release date (thank you, Amazon Prime!).

In short, your Wii personal trainer (the inset image) walks you through a series of exercises, which you choose, and keeps track of your exercise by giving you by banking your time. Each exercise gives you credit in the bank. It has a little celebration when you reach 30 minutes. The exercises are broken up into Yoga (excellent for warming up, even for a scruffy manly-man like myself), Strength Training (yeah - bring it on!), Cardio, Balance Games (I'm a BIG fan of ski-jumping already), and favorites. You can also record other exercises through a simple interface that allows you to input the amount of time spent and the intensity of the exercise.

It's all very cool but there are some drawbacks:

1. The background music is lame on the step-aerobics, and you can't choose your own.
2. You have to choose each exercise using the Wii remote. I find myself looking for a place to set the remote down all the time because you can't really hold it in your hand while you're doing push-ups.
3. Also, there doesn't seem to be a "circuit", i.e., a workout that takes you from one thing to the next. Perhaps this is possible as there are some features I haven't unlocked. This means it takes about 45 minutes to do a 30-minute workout because you have to spend time clicking through.
   
4. It uses Wii-math, so there is no translation to calories burned (again, I may not have discovered this one, yet). That was a big upside of DDR since I am on program called My Food Diary where I record calories burned and it links that up with my calories inhaled.
5. The female personal trainer's skin color is grey... not particularly appealing.

Nonetheless, this thing rocks. It tracks your weight, BMI, fitness level, charts everything, steps you through exercises by unlocking new ones and new intensity levels as you become ready for them. It's unbelievably fun and easy to use like most Wii games.

So, how does it work?

It comes with a special controller called the Wii-step. It looks like a little step like they use in step-aerobics, but his has 4 pressure sensors built into it so that it acts like a scale and tracks your center of gravity (which is critical for Yoga and the balance exercises). In addition, some of the activities use the regular Wii controller. To go for a jog, you simply stick the remote in your pocket and run in place. It senses the movement of the remote to set your pace. Very fun!

As you can tell, I've already rationalized using the Wii Fit during my media detox. I don't have a fancy explanation other than the following rationale:

1. Unlike DDR, this has no popular music associated with it.
2. The system works more like a piece of fitness equipment than a video game. It tells no story, introduces no characters, there is no shooting, etc.
3. I need to lose weight and the Wii Fit is a strong motivator.
4. It is much less of a pop-culture/media tool than the movies I might have to see with my wife.
   

So, there you are, call me weak, but I'm adding the Wii-Fit to the exceptions I'm allowed.

Television Rules

I'm going to dedicate the next few posts to creating my set of rules for my June media fast. As I've already said, I can't realistically shut down all media anymore than I can avoid breathing pollution. I'm just trying to stop breathing straight from the tailpipe for a month.

Anyway, let's start with TV. Since I'm the one who usually turns it on, I can stop that. However, while I'm in the house, the kids have the TV on, so I can't avoid it completely. What I will avoid is "active watching" of the TV. If the kids are watching TV and want to spend some time with me, I'll propose an alternate activity.

What about DVDs? We are netflix subscribers and have a BluRay player in the form of a Sony Playstation 3 (love that device!). I will not initiate any movie watching, but if my wife insists and doesn't want to engage in an alternate activity like walking the dog, visiting the neighbors, or whatever, I will sit down and watch the movie with her AFTER proposing a minimum of 3 alternative activities.

She usually will give me a pass on the chick flicks if I'll rub her feet for the first 1/2 hour or so. So, my 2nd rule with these movies is that I'll always take the opportunity to exit the situation when given it.

That should pretty much cover my TV watching.

What am I going to get out of this?

When popular media pushes its way into your life, there are things that get pushed out. I have several nasty habits linked to my shameless consumption of media, which is the whole reason I'm doing this thing.

Weight Loss
I'm about 60 lbs over my ideal weight. I would be happy to lose about 40 of that. Over the past year, I've lost about 10 of those pounds. I have a bad habit of eating while unwinding and watching TV at night. Usually when I blow my diet, it happens while watching TV, mostly because I lose portion control (hey, what happened to that bag of chips? Oh crap!).

Reading Good Books
Let's face it. When I'm playing a video game, I'm not reading books. I'll probably reach my scripture study goals and polish of a few other tomes that I'm partially through and meant to finish but never did.

Family Relationships
When I'm listening to music or watching TV, I'm not listening to my wife, or my kids, even though we may be doing it together. I'll probably learn a lot about them during the month.

Dog Health
Let's face it. When I'm surrounded by media, I'm going to get out of the house - what's the quickest way? Walk the dog. Heck, I might even meet some of my neighbors.

More Ideas
During those silent commutes back and forth to work or the store, my mind will wander, I'll think about life's challenges, and I'll probably come up some ideas.

Relationship With God
I'm a man of faith. While I mentioned scripture study, I'll probably also find more time for prayer and turning my thoughts to God. This is the one I'm most curious about. I know that the Spirit doesn't stay with you when you are distracted by the noise of this world. I imagine I will have more moments of spiritual reflection and communion with God.

Withdrawls

I LOVE my media, but what will be the most difficult to do without?

• Playing Guitar Hero with my kids
• LOST
• NPR on the way to work
• Kidd Kraddick in the morning
• Using my iPod on my morning walks
• Family Guy - I'm a confessed addict to this show, but I don't think it will be the hardest to give up
• CSI - I only watch new episodes, but this may be the hardest to give up since I think the season won't be over until sometime in June due to the writers strike

Next post... what I expect to gain!

I found a kindred spirit

This guy has an interesting, and in-depth analysis of the way he consumes popular media. Check it out.

How Much Media do I Consume?

Here is a typical day in my life:

6:30am - Exercise with my iPod on - 30 to 45 minutes

7:45am - Commute to work with radio on - 25 to 30 minutes - often interrupted by a phone call

Lunch time - 15 to 20 minutes in a restaurant - radio or piped in music. One place I go has TVs on the wall with the subtitles turned on so that I can either watch the news or sports.

7:00pm - drive home with radio on - 25 to 30 minutes

After dinner - watch TV 1hr to 2hrs - usually skipping commercials with my PVR

That's up to 4 hours on a typical week day.

On the weekends, I usually see a couple of movies whether at the theatre or at home, I'll watch something else on TV, if we go out, the radio in the car is on. If I eat out, there is usually music playing in the background. I often play a video game with the kids and do some recreational internet surfing combined with shopping and answering email, for a couple of hours

I don't read a lot of magazines, newspapers, or that kind of thing.

Next post: will I have a bunch of time I don't know what to do with during detox?

The Rules - I need your help!

I know that in order to do this, I'm going to need to set some very specific ground rules because it is impossible to extricate myself from popular media completely. For example, what about the billboards at the side of the road?

Who will know? I've decided to do this without telling my family because I don't want them to make any special efforts. I want to see if a person can live a normal life over time by unplugging.

Here are the rules I'm starting with. Please comment!

Television

The boob tube is going off completely, except when my wife wants me to watch a specific movie on DVD with her. I don't want to tip her off to what I am doing. This means no news, weather, sports, PVR'd shows, etc. That means you, too, YouTube!

Radio

I listen to the radio in the car. Even though I listen principally to talk radio and NPR, I realize that those are really just forms of entertainment.

iPod and music devices

No popular music. Period. No pod-casts. Should I allow myself to listen to classical music, or, if I really want to hear music, should I just play the piano (which I do passably well)? What about books on tape?

Internet

This is a tough one. I have to use it to work, pay the bills, access my online brokerage accounts, etc. I guess I'll cut "recreational" internet usage like unnecessary searches, joke web sites, etc. What do you suggest? 

Oh, yeah, I'll have to use it to update this blog.

Movies

I don't want to tip off the misses, so I'll go with her to a movie if she requests it, but I'll not initiate it.

Live Events

I don't attend many sporting events or concerts, but since they are havens of music, advertising, and other pop-culture vehicles, I'll have to swear them off completely.

The News

I'm going to cut this out in all forms (including the newspaper) as well.

What's the big idea?

I'm convinced that popular culture is dangerous to my mental (and, perhaps physical) health. So, I'm going to embark on a journey to detoxify myself by "unplugging" for 30 days... the month of June, 2008, precisely.

What does that mean?

Look to the posting on rules (and, please comment), but it means that I'm going to free myself, as much as possible, from the instruments of popular culture.

But, you say, isn't it a bit of a contradiction to use a blog (especially with video clips) to do this? Yes, but modern life is a mass of hypocrisy, so, what the heck.

In short, I'm going to de-tether myself from as many of the instruments of mental destruction as possible. That includes:

• Television (the big one)
  
• Movies
  
• The Internet (outside of what I use for work)
  
• Radio (ouch - very long rides in the car)
  
• Comic books (not a big temptation)
  
• Popular music (good-bye iPod)
  
• Etc.