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Diet week 4 - Wii Fit for weight-loss and getting fit
I lost 3 lbs on my diet this week.
One of the things I've been doing is using the Wii - so here's a bit of a review of the Wii fit that may be useful if you are considering using it as part of a health / fitness plan.
I have had a Wii Fit for sometime and have been using it a lot in conjunction with my alli Diet. I am a lay-person trying to lose weight, so this review is from the point of view of a regular user.
I used the Wii Fit quite a lot for several months when we first got it, but then had a period of a couple months where it was never used. I guess this is similar to other peoples experience, of any fitness initiative that drops off when getting bored of the diet / fitness plan.
I am now using my Wii Fit on a daily basis in conjunction with a strict diet and exercise routine and I'm seeing extremely good results.
The Wii fit has two aspects, one of monitoring and tracking your weight and the other a training section.
As a way of tracking weight loss
The Wii Fit recommends that you have a daily body test, even if you don't have time to do training. The main aspect of this is a measurement of weight and BMI scoring. BMI and weight is compared against your previous reading and is plotted on a graph. If you put on more than a couple of pounds since the previous reading then it asks you to say why that was.
I think the daily weighing is a good idea as long as the results aren't taken too literally. You weight can fluctuate within the day or day to day without it being indicative of your overall weight loss. Therefore it's more important to look at the ongoing trend (over a week for instance) rather than the significance of a daily reading.
Unfortunately where it really falls down is in being able to access that data. You can view the information on a graph on the Wii and you can copy it to view it on another Wii, but you cannot access it in any other way or save it as a more permanent record. The reason for this is that, although you can copy it to a SD Card, the data is encrypted. There are ways around the encryption, but these are too fiddly and depending upon the interpretation of the various laws it may be illegal to do so. To me that is absolutely ludicrous. There is no way that I am going to be able to create a rip off version of the software by accessing my own data about my weight. My own personal data should belong to me and Nintendo should not be able to claim ownership of that or to prevent me in using it in the way I want. This is the one thing that really infuriates me about the Wii fit, and other consoles / computer games in that they treat you like a criminal and remove your personal freedoms.
Wii Fit Age
I'd suggest you give the Wii Fit Age a miss. It's a nice novelty at first, but I don't see much real value as it's just based on how well you perform in some balance games which are as much about gaming skill as it is about physical fitness.
Training
The training is split into different sections for muscle exercises, yoga, aerobic games and balance games. I'm just going to discuss two of these which are the ones I used the most. In reverse order the balance games are good fun, and improve reaction times etc., but I'm not too sure about their actual benefit in relation to weight loss and healthy living.
The other section is the aerobic games section, which includes low impact games such as step, up to higher impact exercises such as jogging (without the actual Wii fit) and shadow boxing. These games are presented in a fun way whilst helping to improve fitness and potentially to work towards weight-loss. The games include a hall of fame to give a target and help to improve your fitness level. This works well at first, but gets very hard to improve on as you go along and can suffer from a small demoralizing factor if someone else has already got the high scores using a score that is incredibly hard to beat.
Depending upon which review your read / which game you play you should only expect to use about half as many calories as you would if you were playing that activity for real.
Cost
Although the Wii Fit is expensive (especially if you don't have a Wii in the first place), this is much cheaper than many people spend on a gym (although it's not a real substitute for the gym, see later). This works out even value if there are more than one of you that uses the Wii fit.
Alternatives
There are alternatives such as Wii Sport (often included with a Wii) and Wii Family Trainer
Does it actually work?
This is the bit I'm not qualified to talk about - so please remember this is just my personal opinion as a user and having read some of the reviews from experts.
The first thing is that it is important what games you do. Clearly jogging on the spot is going to be a good exercise, but the balance games much less so. The other thing to consider is that this is not a complete exercise in itself. You should also be looking to do regular exercises which will burn off more calories and have a better effect.
For me, I do other exercises and just use the Wii as a way of actually doing some exercise in the evening when I would not otherwise be able to do any (kids in bed so I'm unable to go to a gym etc.). I'm convinced it is better than sitting down and watching TV, so from that perspective I think it is beneficial.
It is not recommended that the exercise on the Wii is fully counted towards a minimum exercise quota etc.
What others say
- BBC News - Wii players need to exercise too
- Telegraph - getting a Wii bit fitter?
- myLot discussions - real users views
- How stuff works - How many calories do you burn playing the average Wii game? (read page 2)
Conclusion
All in all I believe the Wii fit is a useful tool for both tracking weight loss (but only on the Wii) and as a way of getting a bit more exercise. It is not an alternative to exercise, but can be a useful addition.
I suggest you read some reviews from experts as well if you want to get a better opinion.
Unfortunately I think the ability to track weight level is badly implemented in a way to intentionally prevent access to the data which is a great shame.
More Information on my diet progress
- Alli diet - About alli weight-loss tablets
- Alli diet - Food diary
- Alli diet - Useful tools and websites to help with the alli diet
- Alli diet - Wii fit for weight-loss and getting fit
- Alli diet - Eating out on the alli diet
- Alli diet - Dieting whilst on holiday
- Alli diet - Dusting off my dancing shoes
- Alli diet - What is your BMI?
- Alli diet - buying Alli weight-loss pills from an on-line pharmacy
- Alli diet - How to avoid the Alli-oops!
- Alli diet - Food review, what tastes nice, what's low in fat
- Diet and fitness - Coming off the Alli weight-loss tablets
- Diet and fitness - Wii Dance Hotest Party Hits 2
- Diet and fitness - Final review of 6 month diet - before and after photos, weight loss chart and summary
I'm tweeting my progress on my personal twitter account (@stewartwatkiss) or you can follow the @firstaidquiz tweets relating to first aid and health topics.
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