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.