Day 80: Wii Fit

Some guy at Target tried to pull me into his scheme to sell Wii Fit online. I think. I guess he could have been stocking up to give them as gifts, but that seems a lot less likely. He approached me at the display and told me the store only allowed the purchase of two games, hen offered me his credit card to use to buy him two more. I declined. Not only do I detest the practice of buying something out from under someone only to sell it to them later at a markup, but I would have been at the two game limit and thus unable to get a copy for myself.

The centerpiece of the Wii Fit package is the Wii Balance Board.


Oops, that's the Atari Joyboard. The centerpiece of Wii Fit is the Wii Balance Board.


Part bathroom scale, part Power Pad, the Balance Board is the large pressure sensitive controller you stand on while making an ass of yourself trying to make your Mii ski through a slalom course. I won't bore you with the details, since plenty of other websites have been doing that since late last year when Wii Fit was first announced.


Wii Fit offers a nice selection of strength and aerobic exercises as well as yoga and balance games and keeps players motivated by offering more games and exercises to unlock as well as letting them set weight loss or maintenance goals.

My major beef with Wii Fit is the heavy emphasis it places on balance, and apparently mine is atrocious. The "Wii Fit Age" is determined entirely by my preformance in two randomly selected balancing activites, paying no attention to my good showings in the strength and aerobic activities.


Wii Fit also allows me to log any activities I do away from the game, turning it into an ninety dollar exercise diary. It's a nice touch, but there doesn't seem to be much point since the hour I spent on my bike this morning, half of that riding into a strong Kansas headwind, counted for nothing towards unlocking any new activities as far as I can tell. Also, I don't enter what I actually did, only that it was light, normal or heavy activity. Some examples of light activity include cooking and laundry. Gardening is a normal activity. I'm not sure where blogging would fall.

Overall I'm pleased with Wii Fit though. It's cheaper and more private than joining a gym and more interactive than Sweatin' to the Oldies. Oh, dude, I gotta go make a Richard Simmons Mii now.