Jun 24 2008

If you are feeling a little too good about yourself, get a Wii Fit

So my husband’s old job used to give him these bonus points every time he did something above and beyond and since they used to work him to death like a rented mule he had thousands of dollars worth of bonus point. This is how we got our sick TV for free.

Anyway, he left that job and his points were about to expire so we went on a wild shopping spree. We got a lot of gift certificates (including a $500 one to Disney that we can use to eat like kings when we go down in September). Then, just for fun, we got an AeroGarden, a Roomba, and a Wii Fit (as well as a few Wii games and pre-ordering the new Sims expansion pack for me). We also got a few boring things for around the house as well, but those are not worth talking about.

The AeroGarden we have had for a few weeks now and it is awesome. The basil is taking over the entire house. It is easily like twice the size of all the others. We already had to eat some of it to keep it from taking over the couch and changing the channels when we were watching something. The only bummer is that the kit we got substituted Thyme for Cilantro which bummed us because we LOVE cilantro and have no idea what to make with thyme. But it is a small price to pay. It’s actually kinda weird because the thing has sort of become our pet and we talk to it.

The Roomba has not arrived yet but I am ludicrously excited about it. Our kitchen always has crumbs on the floor. We really should be vacuuming it every day, but we never do. I am hoping that we can schedule the little Roomba to take care of that every night while we sleep. If it only does the kitchen/study/living room that would be fine by me because those are the highest traffic areas that are most in need of routine cleaning. Then if I can bring him upstairs once a week, turn him on and say “Go ahead little Roomba” he can do a quicky job of getting up the hair on the carpet upstairs. I know he won’t be a substitute for a full hardcore vacuuming but we just need something to do the little stuff regularly. Very excited.

Last night, the Wii Fit arrived. Naturally, it arrived the day after we come back from a vacation where we ate like pigs. My husband gets on and it tells him that he is perfect weight. I am like BS! We discover later that he put his height about 3 inches taller than he really was. Cheater.

I am horrifically obese. Actually, I am not in the obese category, I am just a smidge in the overweight category but they adjust your Mii character to your weight based on your category. So now my cute little Mii self is a huge fatty. My husband’s is not nearly as fat as mine. This made me sad.

On the plus side, it also really motivated me. I set a goal of 5 pounds in two weeks and worked out for 40 minutes last night. Yoga and Strength training are really great workouts. Yoga in particular is pretty brutal for some of them. I actually woke up pretty sore this morning. Aerobics I cannot give a good read on yet. They have a jogging program which my husband said was pretty fun but I cannot do it because of my tendonitis. Hula Hooping is very fun and if you did a few in a row, you would get pretty tired. Step Aerobics annoys me because if you make one tiny mistake, they stop the entire thing to chide you. Then you totally lose the entire rhythm. I wish they would just let me keep going, darn it! I have to see what other aerobics games we unlock as we go.

Balance is a mystery to me. In the early test they took to determine your Fit Age, I did very well in balance. In Yoga, my balance is awesome. Yet I am terrible at all the balance games. For my husband, who was first deemed to have a Wii Fit age of 40 because his balance was so bad, he is awesome at them. So I have no idea. Other than the get the ball in the hole type game, I think its because the balance changes they require are so drastic instead of subtle. I don’t know. They are fun, but I don’t know why I am so bad at them.

I definitely agree with the reviews I read that lament the fact that you cannot create a “playlist” of your favorite exercises. I would love to be able to save a list of strength and yoga exercises that I knew added up to 30 minutes and then just do Balance and Aerobics for the next 15 minutes. It is a little annoying to have to go get the Wiimote in between workouts to change the routine.

Overall I really like it. It’s not a substitute for the gym but there are weeks (like last week) where I have no time to go to the gym and even when I do go, I only go 3 times a week. I like that there is something I can do on the days I am off from the gym to build up muscles at home. Considering the gym takes almost an hour and a half between travel, cool down and shower and this takes only as long as it takes me to slide the board out from under the TV, there is a lot to like.

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