Wii Fit Plus
Went out and bought Wii Fit Plus yesterday, as the whole point of us buying a Wii system is to use it for exercise. Started playing around with it and it is a lot of fun. I like how it keeps track of the minutes you are exercising, gives you beginner and beyond levels for every activity/game. It allows John and me to use the Miis of ourselves we created in the Wii system to do the exercises on screen. And, of course, it keeps track of your weight and BMI, your scores in balance and agility warm-ups and how often you exercise. You can also select what health issues/body issues you're trying to target and the program will custom-design a work-out program for you.
The balance board you stand on is used in a number of interesting ways. You can bend your knees to jump in ski jumping and tightrope walking activities. You stand on it to mimic yoga positions you see on the screen and the screen let's you know if you put your foot down too soon :). You can do stepping activities on it, down and up on all sides of the board. You can use it as a skateboard by pushing your foot to the side to make you go faster in the game. You can walk on it to make a bicycle move around the trails of an island. There are even jogging routines where you step off the board and run on the floor while following a route on the screen with an observation game at the end of what you saw during your run. It's all pretty cool.
There is one addition to the "plus" upgrade that is cute. It also allows you to make Miis of your pets and you can keep track of their weight by holding them and then stepping on the balance board. The program subtracts your weight and tells you the weight of your cat. One thing that's fun about the Wii is that you can create as many characters as you like and those characters show up in the games and exercises along with your personal Mii. We noticed yesterday during running and biking exercises that a little dog runs along with you and we were curious if we made Miis of Edward and Kara if we'd have little cats running with us, instead. Sure enough, as soon as we entered them in the system we now have a black cat and a gray cat who run with us during those exercises instead of a dog :).
The program seems to have great potential for motivation. I'm doing thirty minutes of exercises each day right now (as well as my physio exercises), but I hope to move up to sixty minutes of exercises. I also find it does encourage you to want to eat better and lose weight, something I've been slacking on terribly since hurting my wrist, so as of tomorrow I'm back at Weight Watchers on-line. It seems foolish to be faithful to the Wii exercises and not making a better effort with healthy eating again, too.
The balance board you stand on is used in a number of interesting ways. You can bend your knees to jump in ski jumping and tightrope walking activities. You stand on it to mimic yoga positions you see on the screen and the screen let's you know if you put your foot down too soon :). You can do stepping activities on it, down and up on all sides of the board. You can use it as a skateboard by pushing your foot to the side to make you go faster in the game. You can walk on it to make a bicycle move around the trails of an island. There are even jogging routines where you step off the board and run on the floor while following a route on the screen with an observation game at the end of what you saw during your run. It's all pretty cool.
There is one addition to the "plus" upgrade that is cute. It also allows you to make Miis of your pets and you can keep track of their weight by holding them and then stepping on the balance board. The program subtracts your weight and tells you the weight of your cat. One thing that's fun about the Wii is that you can create as many characters as you like and those characters show up in the games and exercises along with your personal Mii. We noticed yesterday during running and biking exercises that a little dog runs along with you and we were curious if we made Miis of Edward and Kara if we'd have little cats running with us, instead. Sure enough, as soon as we entered them in the system we now have a black cat and a gray cat who run with us during those exercises instead of a dog :).
The program seems to have great potential for motivation. I'm doing thirty minutes of exercises each day right now (as well as my physio exercises), but I hope to move up to sixty minutes of exercises. I also find it does encourage you to want to eat better and lose weight, something I've been slacking on terribly since hurting my wrist, so as of tomorrow I'm back at Weight Watchers on-line. It seems foolish to be faithful to the Wii exercises and not making a better effort with healthy eating again, too.