Help me to decide whether or not to buy a Wii Fit
I’m really tempted to get this Wii Fit doohickey but I’d like to hear some more feedback from people. It’s cheaper than my incredibly unused gym membership and countless dollars I’ve thrown into personal trainers, but is it a good compliment to my type of exercise regimen? I think I’ll be mad if I don’t get some benefits like tone and weight loss if I buy it, but I feel so sucked in to the coolness aspect of it.
My belief is that the coolness of owning one and saying that I own one will be enough motivation to try out exercising in my home to augment my “run like hell” regimen I have from playing soccer twice a week.
Talk some sense into me please!
Reviews I thought were helpful for my prelim knowledge gathering…
http://www.pcworld.com/article/146131/review_nintendo_wii_fit.html
http://gizmodo.com/391553/wii-fit-review-by-a-formerly-fit-geek
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/WiiFitReview.aspx
http://wiigamereviewblog.com/fitness/wii-fit-review/
Reviews still worth reading but weren’t as critical (in my opinion)…
http://kotaku.com/362216/its-shocking-were-pissed-wii-fit-sorta-works
http://wiiscoop.wordpress.com/2008/05/23/wii-fit-blog-review-going-for-a-run/
I’ll let you know what I decide, and of course, I will document my journey if I give it a whirl.
When considering Wii Fit, there are two things to take into consideration – the game itself and the balance board that comes with it. Will the game help you get fitter/lose weight? Yes, if like any program, you stick to it and train properly. Do a search for ‘Official Wii Fit Experiment’ for the best example to date.
For me however, it’s the balance board that comes with Wii Fit which makes the game worth getting. If upcoming games like EA Skate It and Shaun White Snowboarding appeal to you then I’d say it’s most probably worth spending the money on Wii Fit just so you have the board.
My wife has been about even (doh!) since starting in May. She seems pretty frustrated with it as a result. I tell her its probably because she is still nursing. That, and she doesn’t get a ton of time to exercise with a 10 month old trying to get into everything.
I on the other hand have had fantastic results. Some added exercise and revised diet (cut out soda, using small plates instead of large, no seconds) and I’ve lost 16.4lbs in 46 days.
Listen to me!
Why not sponsor a contest on your website?
Invite all of your friends to take before and after photos with date verification (holding a local news paper with the date prominently shown) and have all of your bloggers vote who made to best progress over a month’s time. Everyone can use whatever the want to win (e.g., personal trainer, Wii, sports, Jenny Craig etc.)
To sweeten the pot, you could charge a cover charge to be apart of your contest. Winner takes all.
The winner can then disclose what method he/she used to win.
Just think about it, you could have a virtual reality show!, or not….
@SolidMastery…i lovez your brilliant ideas! i’m feeling some sort of contest. it’ll motivate me, too. lemme marinate on that for a hot sec…
You should totally get the WiiFit!! I am in love with mine. It gives you daily progress of your BMI and weight and also measures improvements to your center of balance. The game is divided into (4) sections: Yoga, Strength Training, Aerobics and Balance. I find the aerobics to be the least effective out of all of them and think this would be the case for most people if they are of a moderate to good fitness level. The strength training and yoga are very effective for the simple reason that they focus and on and measure your center of balance and thus ensure you are doing the excersizes correctly. The balance excersizes are super fun and help someone like me who chronically suffers from Planters and other foot ailments. They focus on improving posture and weight distribution, helping to reduce some of the contributing factors for something like Planters. Overall, I don’t think doing the WiiFit alone is going to significantly impact weight loss unless someone has not excersized at all or very little in the past. But, it is a fun way to get in some level of activity when there is not time for anything else and it adds variety. I probably never would have tried Yoga if it wasn’t on the WiiFit and now I may actually join a class. I give it two thumbs up and think it is well worth the investment!!!
I’ve had mine about 4 weeks now. I haven’t changed much about my diet, except that I’m watching it a little more closely since I may as well take advantage of the increased exercise to lose weight. I’ve lost 6 lbs and really do feel quite a bit more toned.
I start with 8 of the yoga and 8 of the strength exercises every day. Then I go on to the aerobics: 1 game of Advanced Hula, 1 round of Advanced Step, 1 round of Advanced Running, and usually 2-3 rounds of Advanced Rhythm Boxing (I only plan to do one, but end up doing another 1-2 of that one because it’s so addictive). At the end, if I have time I ‘reward’ myself with a couple of the balance games.
I can’t believe how much I look forward to this workout every day. I really have never enjoyed exercising this much before. I’ve tried lots of things over time. Up to this point, the only thing I’ve ever stuck with regularly is Richard Bradley’s QuickFit program. I find most exercise very boring — that particular program just happens to be very time efficient and relatively comprehensive so I’ve been more likely to do it with any frequency. Even so, there have been days or weeks when I’ve skipped it as it doesn’t take much to make me decide to not exercise that day.
Not the Wii Fit tho. Two weekends I’ve had to travel and I can’t believe how much I wanted to bring it with me.
Note that I am still doing the QuickFit strength training program (5 minutes of exercises with hand weights) so it isn’t *just* the Wii. I just integrated these into my Wii Fit workout since I kept feeling that the Wii exercises weren’t working enough of my upper body.
Good luck with your decision. Like you, I researched on the web before buying. It seems that some people are incredibly hooked and some get bored with it. Count me in the hooked category.
— janet
It would be interesting to know details