My Wii Fit Experience

Once again, I have been caught up in the hype and bowed down to The Man only to give him some of my husband’s hard earn money to buy a piece of equipment that I foretell will be laying at the bottom of my hall closet within 6 months.  Not that I will use it for that entire 6 months, but because I am too lazy to bring it to the closet after the 4 times I use it and 6 months sounds about when I will get tired of looking at it in my living room. 

Just like the Wii game system that I bought a few months back, I happened to be in Target early one morning and thought I would just check to see if they had any in the electronics department.  If it wasn’t for the 25 minute wait for my meds, I probably would have never purchased the Wii Fit and we would not be indebted to the evil credit card company for $95.  Since I had been turned down by the incredible geeky little guy behind the counter a week back, I decided to look in the case, first.  I am still scarred by the boy’s squeaky voice chasing me down the aisle on how to get my hands on a Wii Fit and how great an addition to my life it would be.  I think I broke into a run at some point just to escape his breaking voice. 

There I saw it.  Really, I couldn’t believe my eyes.  So of course I stupidly asked, “Is that a Wii Fit in the case?” The older and plump man behind the counter answered, “Yes”.  I noticed a bit of aggravation in his voice, but whateve I was going to get something that many have coveted and I didn’t have to pre-order, meet some scary pimpled face teenage boy in a dark alley or provide my first born to the Nintendo company.  I was so smug walking out of there, because I just happened to be there and, once again, one of the most hyped games in recent history was easily obtained by me.

Like the Wii game, the Wii Fit would not be unpacked and hooked up until the kids were in bed and there was nothing to watch on TV or do on the Internet.  [TV you will always be my first mistress and the Internet will be a very close second.  In order for the Wii to catch up, it will have to offer to watch the children so I can escaperun to the world for some peace and quiet.  Right now, Amber is very disgusted even when I mention the Wii and Sam just sits glazed over wondering why the little people on the screen don't talk to him.]  I thought it would be easy to set up the Wii Fit, because I set up the Wii without much cursing and throwing of expensive equipment.  Oh how wrong I would be.  There are a couple of little important tidbits that the nice people at Nintendo forgot to mention, like putting the extension feet on before you sync up the balance board, if you are using it on carpet.  I spent 30 minutes trying to sync up the board, only to disconnect my Wii remotes.  Note to anyone out there:  Don’t hold down the sync button on the Wii console for longer than 10 seconds or you will erase your previous synced up, blah, blah… Okay, I have bored myself with those last few sentences.  Anyway there was nothing in the instructions regarding my issue and basically the section on “If you can’t get your balance board to synch” told me I was an idiot and didn’t deserve to live.  I cursed, blamed my husband who sat on the sofa on the Internet instead of helping me, and I threatened to throw the whole $500 system out the damn window.  Because you know that would make me feel better and Nintendo, eh, they could careless they already have my money. 

After everything was ready to go, I ran through a series of humiliating test to prove that yes I am overweight.  Well, no duh, I didn’t need a special video game to tell me that.  However, it did tell me that I wasn’t obese, which is always nice and that yes, Fatty McFat you did have good balance.  So chalk one up for the fat girl trying not to fall off a white board in her living room.  There were more games than I expected on the game disc and I like that I have to work to unlock more exercises.  I unlocked 2 within 30 minutes.  I don’t know if that is good, but let’s just say I kicked that little bitch’s ass at the hula hoop.  I even ran.  Matter of fact, I was pleasantly surprised to seeing a running game.  Well, I don’t know if you can call it a game, but it was better than running in a pit of fire, I like to call outside.

I have tried running, before, but felt very self conscious.  You see someone in the boob department upped the ante and I have never found a sports bra, yet, that has the strength to hold those puppies still while in vigorous motion.  I hate to think how I must look while running, so to do it in the privacy of my own living room with the curtains drawn was perfect.  Then I almost died from exhaustion.  I maybe able to balance, hit imaginary soccer balls with my head and twirl my hips like no one’s business, but ask me to move from a stationary position to one where, you know, I have to move every part of my body and you better have the ambulance standing by.  Since, I started late and it was way past my bedtime (10:30pm) I decided that I would go die in my bed. 

Overall, I like the concept of Wii Fit and I like the “games” and help it gives you than just doing workout dvds at home, but there is one fatal flaw.  How will it motivate my lazy ass to actually turn it on and do it?  That seems to be the obstacle I run in with all my failed attempts to workout at home.  The only exercise routine I stuck to was when we were members of a gym.  Mainly, because I was able to drop my then only child off at the gym daycare for 2 hours of being able to hear myself think.  Alas, that is not an option: 1.  It would be very expensive at this point. 2. Amber has aged out of the daycare services at the gym and I would have to pay for summer camp or some other ridiculous excuse to retract more money from my wallet. And 3. the screams that would come from the mouth of my 2 year old would force the gym to declare us never to darken their doorstep again.  Besides, I don’t need to pay to have a work out of running to and from the exercise area to the daycare to tend to my son, who doesn’t believe that I should ever be out of his sight for a moment.  I really do hope I can get off my lazy butt and do the Wii at least once a day.  I may tried to see if Amber can do some of the exercises without her main mode of movement being in the form of whining that it is too hard and no one loves her.  Good lord, when does school start, again?