I will be resuming the project as soon as possible.  It’s good to know that there are people out there keeping up with the progress and inspired to try their own Wii Fit regimen.  Keep up the great work, everyone!

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So, last weekend I had a few beers, some bratwurst, a burger, and a whole lot of sitting around.

As a result, I gained a pound and a half.

This seems like as good a time as any to disclose an additional step I’m taking to lose weight.  There was a great, GREAT price for joining a Weight Watchers group at work, and I signed up.  I started yesterday.  I’ll be doing the flex plan, which means that I’m really not going to change what I eat (an original stipulation of the project), I’m just going to be quantifying my food intake with a set of numbers.

Really, this shouldn’t affect the outcome of the Wii Fit project that much, since I was already trying to watch what I ate before starting the project.  It’s like I said…  I’m just putting numbers and data to my food now.

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The quick run down:

• Weight: 275 lb.
• BMI: 32.01
• WFA: 29

I am progressing quite nicely.  How is Wii Fit working out for you after a couple of weeks?

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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.

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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.

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• 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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