Wii Fit Project

Anyone who is interested or has bought Wii Fit has probably already wondered what life the balance board has beyond the exercises. I’m glad to report that it looks like there’s lots of great possibilities in the future.

I’m sure you’ve probably already heard about We Ski, the skiing game that extends the ski offerings in Wii Fit, but I was most excited about what I read last night in Nintendo Power magazine. It looks like one of the weirdest game franchises on the Wii will have embraced the balance board when it hits the shelves with its third installment. Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party should be coming to us around the holiday season. Of course, we’ll all be buff from the Wii Fit by then.

Alright, tonight was the night the sweat started pouring and I’m imagining that I’ll be feeling a bit sore in the morning.

I started out with Super Hula Hoop.  Definitely not my best activity.  I’m not so great (yet) at the motion to do it right, let alone alternate it between right and left.  I was asked a day or so ago to make a video of me hula hooping.  I meant to do it tonight, but forgot.  I’ll do it tomorrow.

After Hula hooping, advanced stepping, and a jog, I switched to balance games.  I managed to make new scores in slalom, ski jump, and soccer heading, with 59 seconds, 288 meters, and 88 points respectively.

Before doing my yoga cool down, I cracked open the strength exercises for the first time.  My body popped and stretched all over the place during torso twists and rowing squats, but they felt good to do.  I’ll definitely be doing more of those.

Push-ups/Side Planks = EPIC FAIL.  I gave up mid-exercise.  It’ll be a while before I try tackling that one again.  I’ve never been that good at push-ups, and with the balance board forcing you to put your hands where they really need to be, well…  enough about that.

Body Test results show that I’ve almost gotten my center of balance in the right spot, my BMI has gone down about a half point, and I lost 0.3 pounds from yesterday.  My Wii Fit Age (WFA) is now 37. I’m quite close now to finally having my age and my WFA match.

I’ll start logging and documenting my activity a little better from here on out.

It’s been quiet here the past few days because I’ve been out enjoying the Memorial Day weekend.  Time spent on Wii Fit was replaced by a trip to the zoo and playing with my son.  I did spend a half hour on Wii Fit tonight and have found that:

• I’ve lost 2 pounds.
• My Wii Fit Age is now 39.

That’s a decent amount of progress.  Now that the long weekend is over, I’ll resume daily Wii Fit sessions and report progress as it warrants.

Alright, the moment you’ve all been waiting for.  The beginning of some fat pictures.  This one comes courtesy of my friend Julie Parker.  This was taken at last week’s Ad Wars.

So that gives me something to change.  The next time I don a Large New Kids On The Block sweatshirt for a trivia competition, I’ll be looking a little slimmer.

After finishing up some work, I finally got a chance to unbox Wii Fit and get it set up for the experiment.  I took photos along the way to document the initial readings.  I forgot to take a picture of my summary in the Wii Fit Plaza, but my center of balance is pretty good, just barely favoring my left side.

Then, I got all the information put in.

The oddly chirpy Balance Board voice barked a few comments at me and then calculated the body mass index (BMI).  I think the results should surprise no one.  Note how the Wii plumps up from the last picture to the next.

There was a balance test, which I apparently did pretty poorly on since the game asked if I tripped a lot when I walked (the answer: no).  Finally, my initial Wii Fit Age was calculated.

46.

I have the fitness level of a 46 year old.  I’ve got some work to do.  Next came time to set my weight loss goal.  As you know, the ultimate goal of this experiment is to lose 40 pounds.  Wii Fit would only allow me to put in a 22 pound loss goal.

Wii Fit warns that any weight loss goal that is more aggressive than a three pound loss every two weeks is more susceptible to bounce back, so I set my loss rate at 3.4 pounds every two weeks.  This will put me at a 22 pound loss over 3 months.

That means it’s going to take 6 months to acheive my 40 pound loss goal.  Hope you plan to stick around for the long haul.

After getting everything initially set up, it was time to start the training exercises.  I opted for Aerobics my first time out, and i have to say it was fun and got the heart rate going.  Hula Hoop was fun.  Despite being a drummer, the step rhythm exercise did not go as well as I’d hoped (i’m not good at DDR either).  Jogging was pretty good too.

I ended the evening with a little yoga, which was relaxing, but I can already foresee a difficulty.  The combination of my height plus the height of the ceiling in the basement is going to make some of the yoga poses (such as the half moon) a little tough, at least in the beginning.  Ideally, I’ll gain some flexibility so that I can bend more easily and my hands won’t be as close to the ceiling.

Today, I’m not sore but I can tell that I did something that was beneficial to my well-being.  I did another official weigh-in this morning on the bathroom scales.

This morning’s weight was 278.4 pounds, exactly the same as the weigh-in I did on May 9th.

I’ve decided that there’s a lot of the daily minutae involved in this project that I don’t want to clog up the blog with.  I will, however, be tweeting them on Twitter.  If you want to keep track of daily Wii Fit Ages, weigh-ins, and other data, I invite you to follow wiifitproject on Twitter.

I was working late and was heading to bed when I got AJ’s comment about picking up Wii Fit at Blockbuster at 12:01 in the previous post.  I went to bed and laid there for a few minutes before deciding to get up and head over to my least favorite store… Wal-Mart.

I generally try to avoid shopping at Wal-Mart, but I figured since almost all stores would be crawling with people looking for Wii Fit tomorrow, I’d better go while the getting’s good.

The Wal-Mart near me had gotten in 36 copies and had already sold 10 in the hour that it was on the shelf.

I’ve got my Wii Fit. I’m not doing anything with it tonight.  I’m tired.  We start tomorrow.

I woke up excited thinking that today’s the day that I march to the store to pick up Wii Fit.  A quick check of big box retail web sites showed that it doesn’t come out until tomorrow.

What’s that about?  It’s been my experience that all CDs, DVDs, and video games hit retail shelves on Tuesdays.  Why is Wii Fit coming out on a Wednesday?

And, the second side of the issue…  I didn’t pre-order a copy, and from the gadget blog buzz I’ve been reading, the subject matter of this blog may quickly change from “Can I lose 40 pounds with Wii Fit?” to “Can I get a copy of Wii Fit without camping out overnight at Best Buy?”

Hopefully I’ll have decent luck tomorrow and I’ll get a copy so the experiment doesn’t get delayed.  I’ll keep you updated.

I hate that there has to be such a lull in the action here while we all wait for Wii Fit to hit the shelves.  Last week I contacted Nintendo PR to make them aware of my experiment and this site but have yet to hear anything back.  I’d like to get my hands on an advance copy of Wii Fit so that we can get this ball rolling, so if any of you out there have a direct contact at Nintendo that you think might be able to help, please contact me directly at press AT wiifitproject DOT com.

Remember, I’m doing this for all of you!  Well, actually I’m doing it for the benefit of my own health and well-being, but I’m parading it out here for your entertainment and/or inspiration, so if we can get this going, let’s do it!

Alright, I decided we needed to get some baseline readings this morning.  We’ll do this one more time when Wii Fit arrives just so we have an official starting point, but here’s where I stand right now:

• 278.4 pounds
• Height: 6′6″

Taking my height and weight and putting it into a body mass index calculator, I get 32.1, which is just over the line for obesity.

As you can see, all the sweet, creamy obesity resides in one concentrated area on my body. It will be interesting to see how that affects the balance tests in Wii Fit.

Good news is that I’ve already lost 4 pounds since the last time I weighed (probably a month ago), so that’s good.

I put my height, age, and gender into an ideal weight calculator and came up with 239 pounds.  That means I need to lose 39 pounds.

Do I think that I’ll lose all of it in 2 months using only Wii Fit and a sensible diet?  No.  That’s a lot of weight to lose even with daily vigorous exercise.  I will however try to see how much of that goal I can attain in 2 months and then will see it through, no matter how long it takes.

Hello, and welcome to the Wii Fit Project.

My name is Jeremy Fuksa.  I’m a 35 year old interactive designer in Kansas City, MO.  I’ve started this site to chronicle an experiment I’m about to embark on.

I am going to see how well exercise with the Wii Fit will help shed pounds and benefit my health.

I am roughly 40 pounds overweight. My eating habits are not what most would consider poor.  I stay away from fast food as much as possible and try to make the best nutritional choices for myself everywhere that I can.

One year and four months ago I underwent triple coronary bypass surgery.  Long story short, genetics were not kind to my heart.  I am now in good cardiovascular health and my cardiologist suggests vigorous cardiovascular exercise.  I was very good about getting that exercise until winter came and I put 20 pounds back on.  Spring is here, and it’s time to get those pounds back off as well as continue to lose more weight so that I can achieve my ideal weight of 230 pounds.  I figured that Wii Fit would be a fun way to do that.

Now that you know the back story to my fitness needs, I’ll tell you about how I intend to conduct this experiment.

Once I obtain a copy of Wii Fit, I will be using it every evening for a minimum of 30 minutes and a maximum of 60 minutes.  I will do this for a minimum of 60 days.

I will track my progress via Wii Fit and will show screenshot results as well as photos and video of my progress.  I will be keeping track of the following metrics:

• Weight
• Body Mass Index (BMI)
• Blood pressure and heart rate while resting
• Overall well-being
• Notes on how my life is affected from day to day (i.e. not winded when climbing 4 flights of stairs, etc.)

I will keep track of any extra activity (i.e. walking 6 blocks for lunch) in the Wii Fit activity log.

I will not increasing my level of activity outside of Wii Fit and I will not alter my diet any more than I already have in the past month (spring always makes me want to start eating better).

I’m also trying to devise a way to bring other people who want to attempt this experiment together so that we can share in each other’s progress.  More on that as I figure out what specifically I want to do.

As the US release date of Wii Fit (May 21st) approaches, I will have more specifics on all of this and more.

I’ve gotten in touch with Nintendo PR to see if there’s any support I can get from them.  An advance copy of Wii Fit would be ideal so that I might start the project as soon as possible.  Any other third parties that can help in this endeavor are also encouraged to contact me directly at press@wiifitproject.com.

I hope you’ll join me in my journey, and I look forward to losing weight with Wii Fit!