Day 25

Sunday was probably my least organized workout, thus far. Initially, I attempted to do it early in the day... but my audience was far too interested in what I was doing to allow me to easily do this. Turns out that Kirstin has been paying attention and wanted to play too. Whenever we tried to get her off the balance board, she would start shrieking in anger. Baby rage... it's a powerful tool! ;)

Alex and Kirstin trying out the tightrope walking balance game.

Kirstin - her dismal future as a professional ski jumper!

Needless to say, I didn't bother. She wouldn't give up the balance board and I didn't have the desire to fight her over it. I did my workout after dinner. Alex had decided that we needed to have a family movie night, so we all headed downstairs armed with a giant bowl of popcorn (we have had our microwave for 2 years now and I had no idea it had a popcorn setting - Cory didn't burn a kernal!).

I did a quick body test --- nothing impressive, 49 Wii years old, but that was with Kirstin standing on the Balance Board with me, and up 1.5 pounds. This is 30 minutes after eating BBQ burgers and homemade wedges, though, so I'm okay with that.

Then I set the Wii to "free run" for 30 minutes. I turned on my treadmill while Cory changed the channel. Everyone settled in to watch Zathura and eat popcorn, while I jogged. 8 minutes into my run, Kirstin climbed on to the treadmill and slid in to my legs, letting out a volley of shrieks of indignation. 2 minutes later, she did it again...

So... I gave up on the jogging and switched to "30 minutes of free step", which I think is not as great of a workout, but doesn't require the use of a high powered treadmill, just the balance board. I haven't unlocked a very high speed on it yet, so it's pretty slow and mundane. But no one got hurt. I had to step around Kirstin several times and get creative with my footwork, but doing it while watching a movie made the time go fast and was actually pretty fun.

The movie was good too!

Day 24 (I think... I'm losing count)

Did my Body Test earlier in the day, yesterday. This time, I was 27! Alex was 10... and apparently has a very weak body. The Wii Fit is DEFINATELY not geared towards kids, and should have an even more obvious disclamer than it does. Better yet, it should refuse to measure people if their age is under 18 and they're still growing. Apparently Alex sleeps too much, has an almost unhealthy BMI, and is unbalanced. As his mother, and not a computer program, I can tell you that Alex is a great sleeper, is a perfectly proportioned 5 year old, and is just too active to stand still enough to obtain perfect balance. Will have to make a note to to discourage my kids from taking this Wii Fit thing seriously... potential body image issues ahead!

Having said that... I had company working out again. It went okay... I only hip-checked Alex once, kicked Connor twice, and stepped on Connor and knocked him over once.

We need a bigger house!

Today's workout was a bit of both aerobics and strength training:

• Advanced Step
• Advanced Boxing
• Advanced Step
• Advanced Boxing
• Advanced Step

(remember, I can't use the treadmill safely with Connor around so running was out of the question)

• 20 Leg extensions on each side
• 6 Torso Twists one each side and diagonally
• 30 Jacknifes (I'm a "bodybuilder" and apparently have amazing ab strength --- the balance board can't tell how well you're doing the excercise, only that you've lifted your feet off of it)
• 10 Lunges on each leg

At this point, we had to head upstairs to get ready to go to my work BBQ, so maybe I'll finish the strength training excercises I missed, today.

Day 23

Another night of uninspired lack of motivation... but I dragged myself downstairs to do my body test and workout anyway. I stuck to the yoga. I did every pose (except the shoulder stand) and racked up my 30 minutes in fit credits. I was going to do the strength training, but I am just tired tonight and don't want to. Of course, after supper I took all three kids grocery shopping on my own, that must count for some sort of workout?

I was pretty unbalanced, too, so I scored a hefty 41 wii years old, and was down .5 pounds.

I think that, if I continue this nightly ritual beyond my thirty days, I am only going to do the balance test once a week. Seeing the weight go up and down every day is frustrating and not a real assessment anyway.

On another note: Lots of smoke in town today. Apparently we have two forest fires blazing quite close to us. Talk on the town, at lunch, was a fire on Sinkut Mountain and one at Baldy Hughes (I camped there as a Girl Guide). Some speculate the smoke is around Quesnel, others think it's from the huge fire that has the residents of Clinton evacuating. C'mon rain... give us your best!

Also, at Isle Pierre, the police are combing a property. Apparently they have a lead on Nicole Hoar (missing since 2002) and are looking for her remains. I hope they are successful, not because I want to know that she was murdered, but because her family, as well as other families of the victims of the Highway of Tears serial killer, need some closure. I can't imagine what they have gone through, not knowing.

Anyway, on that downer... I'm retiring for the night. I hope to have more energy and more enthusiasm tomorrow. It is Saturday, after all! :)

Day 22

Wow, I'm kind of amazed that I've stuck it out this long. I figured I'd work out for a few days and then start skipping a day, here and there. Today was one of those days that I would have skipped, if I hadn't felt compelled to publicly post my results.

So... this being my three week weigh in... the moment of truth... after 21 days of exercising steadily, for at least 30 minutes a day --- EVERY day... I am 22.7 lbs away from my goal. If you recall, my goal was to lose 22 pounds. You do the math!

So... completely uninspired, I set the "free run" to 30 minutes and switched the tv over to a re-run of "That 70's Show". At about the 11 minute mark, I shut off the treadmill and set the free step to 10 minutes instead, then watched a bit more of that 70's show. I probably could have finished the 30 minutes on the treadmill (you don't get any fit credits if you quit partway through, turns out) but I was having a hard time keeping myself enthusiastic. The free step was agonizingly boring, and I didn't even bother finishing watching the episode. Pretty sure I saw it back in the day when it was on the air. So after that, I did the Advanced Step and then the Advanced Hula Hoop to bump my time up to 30 minutes (although it only registered 20 since my jogging didn't count).

Anyway, I was not inspired and not motivated. Come day 31, I'm going to have a hard time convincing myself to continue to give up an hour + of my time, every night if I don't see the numbers going down.

Day 21

So... I've kind of got a pattern going, now... cardio Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday; strength training/yoga Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I have this inner desire to be organized, that occasionally spills out into projects I take on. You wouldn't know it, to look at my house, but I really like routines and daily tasks.

Being Wednesday, I decided to tackle yoga and strength training. So after a fairly successful balance test (down .4 pounds and 29 years old), I started on the yoga. I did all of the exercises, with the exception of the shoulder stand. For that I just put my feet up against the wall... I seem to remember from my great Yoga Class Fiasco of 2003, that an inversion against the wall still counts.

Second, I started the strength training, with the idea to just go through it until I was physically tired. I skipped the push-ups (again), but managed to complete all the other challenges until I got to the last two. The arm/leg (horsey) thingy and the standing arm extension thingy. I hit a roadblock with those two.

Alex had created a wonderful train track downstairs today that snaked under the coffee table and up to the couch. So, my excuse for not tackling those last two exercises, was that I just couldn't find a big enough patch of floor to do them on. The other exercises that require space I managed to do. I kept rotating the balance board to fit in amongst the tracks, but these last two... just not possible. So I quit, two exercises short of an entire workout (we don't count the push-ups).

Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it! :)

Wii Fit - Day 20

Well, apparently I can't count. Yesterday's post should have been labelled "Day 19" rather than 18, for anyone obsessive enough to care. I, myself, have been obsessing about correcting it all day!

Cardio... my preferred workout...

• Long distance run
• Advanced Step
• Long distance run
• Advanced Hula Hoop
• Long distance run
• Advanced Boxing

Here I had fallen 1 minute short of my goal of 30 minutes, so I did another Advanced Step, although really to make for a pretty workout regimen, I should have finished up with a Long Distance Run.

As I reward, I headed soccer balls and a fair number of cleats. I am getting better though, I came in third behind my brother and set a personal best!

So... here's the thing... tonight I was up 2.2 pounds. So my successful down 2.4 pounds yesterday... well forget it! Perhaps it is due to the different time of day that I did the balance test all weekend, perhaps it's due to the pub food we ordered last night after the kids were in bed. I'm now 21.4 pounds away from my goal of losing 22 pounds in three months. Whoopity doo!

I am definitely feeling better. I can tell that I have more energy and my joints aren't feeling stiff at all, so this 30 day goal is having a positive impact in that aspect. However, if my very slow to lose pace keeps up, I might actually have to break down and start monitoring my eating, as well... something I have far less will power to do!

On a different note... I am a healthy 27 Wii years old tonight! On the initial balance test, my balance was 49.8 left and 50.2 right, so I did pretty decently on the two tests! :)

Wii Fit - Day 19

Today's my flex day. I love flex days. We work an extra 45 minutes a day (which I don't really love) and then once every two weeks, we take a day off. LOVE IT! So, today I was able to complete my workout nice and early, rather than waiting for the kids to be tucked in.

Not the best route to go...

Attempt #1 - Scenario: Everyone goes downstairs so that Kirstin can sleep without my noisy crew waking her up. The boys play quietly on the floor, while I work out. I did approximately 22 minutes of yoga and failed almost every pose. My balance was WAY off and I wasn't concentrating on what I was supposed to be doing. I also had to kick toys out of the way. Then Kirstin woke up from her nap so I quit completely. Yoga is NOT something to attempt with the assistance of a 2 year old and a 5 year old, and a screaming 1 year old.

Attempt #2 - Everyone stays upstairs with Cory while I sneak down to the basement for half an hour. I began on the strength training exercises. Fast forward approximately 5 minutes and the boys have joined me. Kirstin is periodically yelling at me through the cat door. Alex and Connor work out beside me, often we bump into each other. It's fun, until I get to the floor exercises. I am attempted to do an "arm and leg" extension...

when I hear Connor say "Yay, you a horsey"... suddenly there's this weight on my back...

Anyway, the good news is that I did the balance test both times and both times my result was the same... down 2.4 pounds from yesterday! Woohoo! And a very youthful, 33 years old! :)

The Fall Fair...

To break up the monotony of post after Wii Fit post... here are some photos from our Saturday at the Fall Fair:

MINI GOLF:

This home-made mini-golf course took us approximately 10 minutes to play through. Turns out... my kids cheat! :) It's much faster, and apparently more satisfying, to use your hands to place the ball in the hole so you can get on to the next hole sooner.

LEGO:One exhibit was an amazing table of lego sculptures. You have to admire his skill and dedication. When we used to play with lego, back in the day, I never managed to ever make anything recognizable.

BUBBLES:

The kids loved chasing bubbles that a clown was blowing. We stopped and watched him for quite a while.

ANIMALS:

In our sleepy little farming town, livestock is a much bigger attraction for my kids than it ever was for me. Connor was fascinated by the chickens. Alex was loved the cows. Kirstin was drawn to the "woof woofs", my personal favourite, as well.

COOPER (THE CO-OP BEAR): No, I don't want to give you a hug... but I will take some stickers, without actually going anywhere near you, you freaky thing...

GIANT, INFLATEABLE PLAY STRUCTURES:

PLAYGROUND EQUIPMENT:

WAITING FOR A BALLOON ANIMAL FROM THE VERSATILE BUBBLE BLOWING CLOWN: So, not the biggest, flashiest fair, by far. No roller coasters, tilt-a-whirls, or carnival games... but good enough for my kids. I was really impressed by the "kid-friendly" environment this year. Last year the most exciting thing my kids did, was sit on a tractor.

Some day we'll ruin them forever, but taking them to the PNE, or Canada's Wonderland, or Disneyland... but for now, the Nechako Valley Exhibition still manages to delight... :)

Day 18

I didn't post my update yesterday, but I was pretty pleased with my workout. I set the "free run" for 30 minutes, thinking I'd just quit whenever I got tired of running, but I actually managed to make it through the entire 30 minutes! I did a combination of running and walking, between 3 and 5 miles per hour, and the time actually passed pretty quickly. When I finished that, I played the Advanced Step game, and then the penguin balance game. I know it was a good workout because I got my heart rate up and worked up quite a sweat.

I also had a very good body test! 24 Wii years old!!! My Wii said that my body was still in very good shape, which is a bit of a joke... really, all the low age means is that I have managed to figure out how to evenly distribute my "not very good shape" between my left and right legs. That's all! Stupid machine!

So, I did the workout in the morning, and had a weight gain of .2 pounds. I attributed this, again, to weighing at a completely different time of day. For comparison, I weighed again 12 hours later after the kids were in bed. I had the exact same weight, and had aged 9 years. So much for that theory!

Day 17

Me and Alex!

Today I had a workout buddy and it was way more fun. I did my balance test and lost .2 pounds (of course it was 12 hours earlier than on a weekday) and Alex did his balance test and had gained a bit --- which is what you want your kids to do, right? I was a healthy 32 Wii years old, he was a rather unhealthy 27, LOL. Stupid game gave him the steadiness balance test, so of course he was destined to fail that one! Alex, stand still and don't talk for 30 seconds... ;)

So, together we did the two person run, Alex on the floor, me on the treadmill. Then I did two rounds of the Advanced Step Class (while Alex "ran" on the treadmill at the lowest speed I could set it without him realizing I had set it on a very babyish speed). The I boxed while Alex chattered away. We finished up with another two player run. It's a bit distracting doing a work-out with my 5-year old, but nice to get some one on one time with him while Cory watched the younger two upstairs.

We ended our workout just as Kirstin and Connor discovered where we had sneaked off to and decided to give me the guilt trip tears, toddlers are so good at.

Day 16

I was a comfortable 32 Wii years old, but up .4 pounds. The Friday weigh-in, sigh, it's a bummer. And tomorrow is going to be worse, of course, cause I'm taking the kids to the fair. Not a vegetable in sight there, unless corn dogs count?

A speedy workout again tonight. This time my father-in-law actually walked in on me doing yoga... aah, the humiliation! :(

Actually, it went really well. I did all the yoga poses (with an interuption of about 20 minutes in between poses 2 and 3 because I heard Connor wake up howling from a bad dream). I hit quite a few high scores. I had a very flexible night! I felt really good about the poses, too. I think the warrior is my favourite.

That's all I did, though, so it probably wasn't quite 30 minutes, because the Wii Fit gives you 2 minutes for each pose, regardless of how long you hold it. I was going to do the step class to make sure I did my goal of 30 minutes of exercise, but my f-in-law (hehe, that almost sounds dirty) was coming downstairs again. So I quit. What can I say, I'm not that dedicated.

On a completely different note...

OMIGOD!!!!!

1. The Wiggles are coming to Prince George in October. My kids LOVE the Wiggles. Even Kirstin, who still has the attention span of a gnat, will sit through an entire episode, waving her hands and babbling at the television. And I will admit, myself, having been a stay-at-home Mom for the 3 of the past 5 years, I've a bit of a fondness for them too. When you're surrounded by people under 3 feet tall who chatter at you all day about completely irrelevant (although totally adorable) stuff, you start to crave adult company... and the Wiggles start to look pretty hot (actually, the Johnny and the Sprites guy isn't too hard on the eyes, either).

Tickets for the Wiggles go on sale Monday morning so we are going to go online promptly at 10am (hmm, better check and make sure that's Pacific time) and take the whole family. Who knows if an opportunity like this will come around again. Next time they're in our area of the country, I'm sure the kids will have moved on to other idols with less wholesome music.

And another OMIGOD...

2. ALAN JACKSON is coming to Prince George in November! I can't decide which excites me more, the Wiggles or AJ. His voice just gives me chills. Anytime one of his songs comes on the radio, I crank the volume and sing along, regardless of who's listening. I think the AJ tickets are already on sale as it looked like I could have completed the transaction on Ticketmaster right away, but the $84.50 price tag caused me to take a step back and think about it before impulsively purchasing one. I'll probably log on tomorrow morning and then impulsively buy one.

Anyway, that's enough for tonight. I'm off to read a bit before climbing into my bed, where Connor has decided to make camp for the night.

Day 15...

Day 15 --- two weeks gone, 2 and a bit to go.

We have a houseguest for the next three nights. Cory's Dad is in town working at the Fall Fair, and because our Wii is right outside his bedroom door I wanted a workout that was quick to complete, just in case he wanted to retire. So I picked exercises I could shuffle through rapidly to avoid that extra 20+ minutes of fluff between games. So I did some repetition:

Distance Run (4 minutes)
Distance Run
Distance Run
Advanced Step
Advanced Step
Advanced Boxing
Distance Run

A total of 34 minutes

I was looking forward to my weigh-in tonight. Last week, recall, that after 7 days of slogging away, I lost a brilliant .6 pounds. I know that it takes a bit to see the results of an exercise regimen, so I figured tonight would be a much more motivating number.

So... I have lost, since last Thursday... .2 pounds.

Altogether an impressive .8 pounds since day 1!

Umm... Yay?

Hmmff.

Day 14

I'm going to have to change my trainer. Tonight I had a fight with Andrew. He's taking it a lot better than I am. Typical man, doesn't even realize I'm mad at him!

Tonight I focussed soley on strength training (have I mentioned how much I love strength training) and I completed every exercise that I've unlocked (except the push-ups - we don't go there). I even completed them to the maximum reps that I've unlocked. I was working up a sweat, too, so I thought it was going okay. Nothing great, but nothing too horrid, either.

So it comes time to do the plank. I managed for 8 seconds and then came crashing down. I tried to get back into position, but I just couldn't manage it on my wobbly arms, but I really did try. Really!

Andrew says "I know you took a break there".

I told him to go to hell.

Then with the very last exercise in my workout, some sort of standing arm extension or something like that, I just couldn't do it properly. I tried my hardest to stand up and lay down as fast as he did, but I fell behind pretty quickly. I think, though, that I really did manage to keep my arm upright the entire time. So when he said "You're arm is slanted" I yelled at my tv,

"Yours is too, a$$hole!"

I'm losing it! ;)

Day 13...

Ugh... feels like I've been doing this forever, yet I haven't even hit the two week mark. I think I'd do better with a morning workout, but I don't have the desire to set my alarm an hour earlier. Plus, I'd likely just wake up my kids in the process and I wouldn't be able to work out, anyway. (Ever try to run on a treadmill with your two year old hopping on and "wheeeeee-ing" his way down to the end? I have to do some fancy footwork to avoid tripping on him and careening off the end, myself).

Tonight, a very simple routine:

• Free Run (cool, you can set it for 10, 20, or 30 minutes and then change the channel and watch tv while the Wii records your progress)
• Advanced Step Class
• Advanced Boxing
• Advanced Step Class (hey, I'm getting good at it and it's pretty fun)
• Advanced Hula Hoop

To reward myself, I tried out the penguin balance game and then played 20 minutes of Dr. Robotnik.

I've started to be a lot smoother with the remote, but I still think that the biggest issue with the Wii Fit is how disjointed my workout is. Between activities, stopping and starting to point the remote at the screen makes for a jerky transition. I try running in place while switching between screens to keep my heart rate up, but that only makes my hand/eye coordination that much less accurate. Nintendo's pretty clever, they should be able to come up with a way to program your workouts so that it flows smoothly between activities.

In all, though, this has been a great birthday present so far.

Wii Fit - Day 12

I was really discouraged by the mess in the basement... not necessarily because there were toys everywhere (as I'm pretty much used to coming home to that), but because there was no room on the floor to put my balance board. You'd think in the middle of creating their chaos, my children would think, "Oh wait, we need to leave a space in the middle clear of stuff so that Mama can do her workout tonight without having to tidy first". So... I almost didn't. But then I thought, "screw it" and I pushed everything off to the edges, leaving my free space without cleaning up after my sloppy family. I might have to try that upstairs, too... push all the junk to the edges and enjoy some clear floor space! :)

My second though was "oh, there's no room on the floor to do strength training, so I should stick to cardio"... but I didn't do that either. I stacked a couple of chairs on the coffee table, piled a couple of laundry baskets on the couch, kicked some peanuts under the tv, tossed some toys in the corner... (hmm... wonder what our weekend project should be?)

And so, despite all attempts of my family to sabotage my efforts, I did the workout. I started out with yoga poses, intending to do a few and then switch to some strength training, but I ended up going through the entire set. 15 yoga poses! Some done much sloppier than others, for example the hellish shoulder stand, which obviously wasn't designed by someone still sporting the remains of 3 extra large baby bellies. I rewarded myself by playing the soccer balance game, and actually managed to set a record... 58 points! I'm not sure how they score that, because I certainly didn't hit 58 soccer balls, but hey, I'll take what I can get! :)

So... down .4 pounds from yesterday, a comfortable Wii age of 31... and craving ice cream like crazy!!! Off to brush my teeth to combat the desire to indulge my craving before bed!

Reality check...

I can't figure out how to embed this into my blog, so if you're interested in the trailer for our newest toy, click on the link below:

http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/13270

Day 11

I am pleased to say that I am 27 Wii Fit years old today!!! It's been well over 5 years since I've felt that young! :) Weight stayed the same, too, so all in all a good body test for me.

I do question the necessity of doing the silly body test every day. I think a weekly weigh in would be more appropriate, however the game has a built-in guilt chip and if you don't weigh-in every day, it questions your committment to your fitness.

For example, my brother, who set it up with his profile, hasn't been on it since. Today the talking board said "I haven't seen Eric in a while? How has his posture been?" When I clicked that it was good, the Wii said something along the lines of, "you should tell him that you said that"...

So... Eric, my Wii fit is missing you! And I think you have good posture!

Today was a good workout. Again, before the kids bedtime, rather than after. I'm far less drained to start with.

• Distance run
• Distance run
• Distance run again --- I was on a roll! Turns out that my pace is a lot faster when I put the remote in my pocket rather than in my hand, so the distance run only actually took me 4 minutes each time.
• Advanced Step
• Advanced Step
• Advanced Boxing

To reward myself, I tried the tightrope game and on the 4th try, finished it! I never actually fell off at all thought, I kept getting tripped up at the boss... :) Yup... the boss. It is reminiscent of Super Mario III.

Day 10!

Whew, 1/3 of the way through my experiment! :)

Today was much, much better. I sneaked downstairs while the boys were in the tub and left Cory in charge of Kirstin and pj's. Doing the work out 3-4 hours earlier in the day is definitely way easier! I was much more motivated.

So, can't put much faith in the weigh-in, because it is 4 hours earlier than normal, but this time I was down 2.6 pounds (???) and at a healthy age of 32. Woohoo!

Tonight was Aerobics again:

• Short run
• Beginner Hula Hoop
• Beginner Step Class
• Beginner Boxing
• Distance Run
• Advanced Hula Hoop
• Advanced Step Class
• Advanced Boxing

Pretty organized, huh? ;)

By this time I could hear lots of yelling, crying, crashing... stomping... upstairs, so I figured I'd skip the "reward" balance games. I did the Zen game, instead. I managed to sit still and focus for the entire time, proving once again ,that sitting on my butt is my strongest skill.

Wii Fit - Day 9

Ugh!

I had no desire to use the Wii Fit tonight. We met my family for supper so didn't get back until late. By the time the kids were in bed, I was heading downstairs at 10:30 --- very reluctantly.

Anyway, up 2 pounds from yesterday (huh?) and age 32.

Not a stellar workout, but I racked up my 30 minutes, regardless:

• Short run
• Yoga - the last 6 poses... even the one where my trainer puts his feet behind his head. My feet got nowhere near my head, but I did manage to get both legs up in the air for almost the whole 30 seconds. I remember doing this as a kid, for FUN... what was I thinking?
• The Advanced Step Class
• Strength Training - the first row of exercises, minus the push-ups... because they're push-ups, enough said!
• Beginner Boxing

I rewarded myself by playing the soccer ball game. Got clocked by a flying panda head, but no cleats this time! That's gotta be progress! Now, if only I could get more of the soccer balls to make contact...

Finished off with the zen game and I managed to make it the entire 180 seconds. Yay for me! I am a pro at sitting on my butt and not moving!

Caught off guard...

Because my attempt to capture his ABC's on film didn't really work out as brilliantly as I had hoped, I managed to capture this cute "sing-a-long" instead! :)

Can't believe I got away with it!

Wii Fit - Day 8

Well, it's been a week since I started my 30 day experiment, so I was looking forward to today's body test as being more representative of what I can accomplish with a week's worth of exercise.

I cheated and weighed a couple of hours early because the kids wanted to play Wii. So, if I take my 8pm weight... it was exactly the same weight as yesterday, giving me a weekly total loss of .6 lbs. Whoopity Doo! But if you take my second body test which I did at the same time I've done it every other night this past week... two hours later... after tucking kids in, checking my email, washing dishes and counters, and sweeping the floor... at that point, I'd actually gained .9 lbs. Giving me a weekly weight gain of .3 pounds. Now what on earth is so fattening about reading stories and cleaning the kitchen???

Wow! Underwhelming!

So tonight, I did strictly cardio:

• Short run
• Beginner Hula Hoop
• Beginner Step Dance
• Long Distance Run (again, only 8 minutes, definitely no marathon)
• Advanced Hula Hoop
• Advanced Step Dance
• Advanced Boxing

This brought me up to 31 minutes, so I rewarded myself by taking cleats in the head and creepy decapitated panda heads, with the odd soccer ball actually hitting it's target. Then I skied into several flags, proving once again that I am "unbalanced".

Sigh!

So... tonight I was 40, Alex was 23, and Connor was 9.

Day 7...

30 years old today! Woohoo! For the first time EVER my Wii age is more flattering! I like the balance test where you just stand still. I'm okay with that!

But then the bad news... up .4 pounds. Again. I must like that number!

Tonight was strength training turn again, so my workout consisted of:

• Yoga poses (the first 5 to start). I attempted the very last pose that I had just unlocked, but when Andrew stuck his feet behind his head, I knew I was out of my league so I quit mid-stretch and told him what he could do with that pose.
• Advanced step class to break up the monotony of abusing my various muscle groups.
• Strength training (the middle 5 and the first 2 on the last row, some leg stuff, some arm stuff, and the odd ab thing thrown in for torture)
• Advanced hula hoop (this was supposed to be a reward for my hard work - ice cream would have been better!)
• Yoga (two that I hadn't unlocked yet)
• To finish off the workout, the creepy zen game again. This time I lasted 32 seconds... way less stable. Of course my cat was rubbing up against my legs so I think I can conveniently blame her for my inability to sit still.

Then, because I'm a cheater, I weighed myself again and had gained .6 pounds. An hour of sweating and I gained .6 pounds. Crazy. Where's that ice cream?

Wii Fit - Day 6

Well... I made it past the day 5 in which I predicted I would quit and you'd never hear about this again. I admit, I'm enjoying it. But I'm forsaking everything else I like to do in the evenings, so it's quite possible that once I hit day 30, my schedule might decrease a bit. Or at the very least, I'll stop blogging about it anyway! :)

Mii...... and my family...

Tonight I was down .4 pounds... the .4 I was up last night. I didn't do horribly on the balance tests, but didn't do any better, either. I question how a silly thing like standing perfectly still or walking 20 steps in one place, can tell a computer how "fit" you are, but whatever, the competitiveness in me keeps me doing the balance tests so that I can see what my Wii Fit Age is.

So tonight I went back to my favourites, aerobics. My workout was pretty straightforward.

• Short distance run to warm up, using the Wii remote on the treadmill
• Beginner hula hoop
• Beginner Step Aerobics
• Advanced Step Aerobics
• Distance Run on the treadmill (8 minutes)
• Advance Boxing (okay, I thought I was uncoordinated at the step game, but turns out I am HORRID at boxing)
• Advanced Step Aerobics
• Two Yoga poses - well, one actually... the second one I couldn't do. Andrew accused me of taking a break, and I was. I was sitting on the couch sticking my tongue out at him.
• As a reward, I played 3 rounds of the bubble river balance game and popped and drowned my Mii each time.

C'est la vie!... Charting my progress! I do this merely for the cute little stamps. I earned a new one tonight, I get to find out what it is tomorrow!

(note how much pudgier my Wii Fit avatar is than the

every day version Cory made of me... love truly is blind, hehe)

Wii Fit - Day 5

Wii fit age... 38

Wii weight... up .4 pounds

Tonight I broke down and did the strength training exercises. Ugh... I know why I am avoiding them! First off, it took over an hour to accumlate 30 minutes so that I could guiltlessly quit. Second... OUCH! Enough said.

I warmed up with yoga, which I really kind of am enjoying. I did "12 minutes" --- more like 25 --- of yoga, so 6 poses. Then I did another 13 minutes of strength training. Some more miserable then others. Then, because I couldn't fathom doing 5 more minutes of strength exercises, I racked up the last 5 by doing the Advanced step (which I set a personal high in, I might add). Time to haul out the old DDR dance pad, maybe?

What I learned tonight?

1. I cannot do a push-up to save my life. However, the machine can't tell if you cheat and do girly push-ups, so I didn't score too badly on this one.

2. Lunges hurt!

3. The jacknife is next to impossible to do correctly, however if you do it horribly, like I did but still manage to lift your fit a teeny bit off the balance board... you score the rank of "bodybuilder". Umm... yeah, right...

4. My trainer, I call him Andrew because he looks like an Andrew, apparently needed to take a pee break or something, because I had a substitute trainer for the first yoga pose and then he came right back. Weird... you'd think he'd pee during the other 23.5 hours of the day that I don't require his services!

So, yippee, tomorrow I get to slink back into my comfort zone and do the aerobics, again. Give my muscles a chance to recover, right? Let's see, another 4 days of aerobics and it should be safe to do the strength exercises again, right Maybe I should make it 10, just to be sure...

Wii Fit - Day 4

Down another .7 pounds... I hope this isn't just a typical daily weight flux, cause it's pretty cool! Except... today apparently, I'm 45 :P

So today's workout was more of the same... aerobic games. Guess I'm pretty much into them... or too chicken to try out the strength training. I'm loving the dance step game, and actually can see myself improving. Who knows, maybe the Wii will give me a sense of rhythm, if nothing else.

I unlocked a couple of new yoga poses, a new strength training excercise and the last balance game. A "Zen" one where you sit cross legged on the balance board and stare at a candle. Umm... kind of weird. I scored 152 seconds. Not too sure if that is good or bad.

As a reward for my workout, I played the soccer ball game, scored a measley 23, and took quite a few cleats in the head, sigh!

My Grandma

My Grandma's Obituary:
Irene Sarver, of Medicine Hat, passed away on Sunday, June 14th, 2009 at the age of 82 years. Irene leaves to cherish her memory one son, Vern (Patti) Sarver of Nanaimo, BC: three daughters, Carrie (Alan) Martin of Prince George, BC, Marlene (Ed) Jones of Robson, BC, and Anita (Larry) Geddes of Mediciane Hat; nine grandchildren; nine great-grandchildren; and one sister, Gladys Currie of Nelson, BC. Besides her husband, Ernest, Irene was predeceased by her parents, William and Anna McKee.
Irene was born in Calgary and raised on the farm near Leslieville. As teenagers, Irene and Galdys took their horses on trail rides. Irene had a special love of horses and everything western.
Irene supervised school in Carlos, AB and later in Buster Creek, AB , where she met Ernie. Prior to starting their family, Irene lived with Ernie in a cabin on the Baptists River while Ernie tended his trap lines. She learned how to use a rifle and brought home rabbits, squirrels and muskrats. Irene and Ernie were married in Golden, BC. They lived near Nordegg, AB; in Mayerthorpe, AB; Wells, BC and Riondel, BC - adding a new member to their family with each move.
While living in Riondel, Irene and Ernie had large vegetable gardens, blackberry and raspberry bushes, fruit trees and flower gardens. Irene spent many hours canning and turning the fruit into wonderful jams and pies. They spent summers going for walks, fishing in their boat, "Misty", and golfing together. Mom was very supportive of her children and encouraged us in our interests, whether it was sewing, music or art. She loved to sew, embroider and crochet and loved her flower gardens. We were always amazed that she knew the name of every flower.
Mom loved her Tim Horton's and visiting with her friends over coffee. She was a happy, soft-spoken, gentle person, generous to a fault and always ready with a smile. Critical of no one, she always saw the good side of people and made many friends. A sister, a mother, a grandmother and a wife; she loved us all dearly and we her. It breaks our hearts to say goodbye. We know she was tired and we had to let her go.
Her final resting place will be with her mother in Rocky Mountain House.

Wii Fit - Day 3

Being Saturday, I thought that I could work out with my Wii fit earlier in the day. Big mistake. You cannot do any aerobics while toddlers are circling your feet. Not only are they tripping hazards, they also throw tantrums when you don't give them a turn. And when you do give them a turn, the machine complains that your weight is significantly lower then last time and questions whether or not you want to proceed.

So... back to my late night schedule... dragging my butt down to the basement after a long day and a long bedtime routine, when I'd rather just curl up under the blankets with a book. So, after we tucked the kids in, Cory helped me out with my workout. He used the controllers from the couch while I went back and forth between my treadmill and the balance board. This made for a much more fluid workout and I was able to keep moving consistently for the entire half hour. I unlocked a boxing game, an advanced hula hoop game and a couple more yoga poses. Today my Wii age was 34 (Yay! I can live with that) and I was down 1.5 pounds from my initial weigh in on Tuesday. You can't put too much faith in a system that tells you your Wii age as your Mii is leaning over groaning and holding her back, hehe, because the balance games are different every day. And the weigh-ins are arbitrary based on clothing, time of day, etc. but still I can see it being an addictively good motivator. I wish the scale didn't groan every time I step on it, though... :)

So, this workout then was more cardio - a short run, hula hooping, the advanced step twice, the advanced hula hoop, boxing, and a run to cool down. Then I tried two yoga poses, followed by some balance games as a reward. I'm still avoiding the strength training... but maybe some day I'll be reading to feel the burn!

Then Cory and I played some Wii sports before retiring for the night. I barely beat him at bowling (169 to 166), but his Sports Age of 26 is WAY better than mine of 49. C'est la vie... sports have never been my strong suit.

Wii Fit - Day 2

Well, turns out if you start your body test right before midnight and you finish it right after midnight, the stamp goes on the next day. Bummer! Now it looks like I skipped a day.

I would have gotten on the balance board sooner, but I had company until just before midnight. My brother and parents came out and we stayed upquite late playing Ticket to Ride. Lots of fun!

I was very tempted to skip the Wii Fit for the day, but like I said yesterday, public humiliation is a good motivator. Missing day 2 on my quest for 30 days in a row, well that's just sad. So, I decided that I'd give it a whirl anyway, since tomorrow is Saturday. If my children ever miraculously decide to sleep in, technically, so can I.

So, day 2...

First, the bad news... up 1.1 pounds (maybe something to do with my tendency to dine out on Fridays - first an office lunch at the pub, second meeting my family for dinner at the resort halfway between our towns)

Second, the good news... a Wii Fit age of 37... not bad, not bad at all.

I know I said I would do strength training tonight, but it was too late to concentrate on learning anything new (how's that for an excuse?), so I went with what I know... more Aerobics. This time:

• A short run (on the treadmill) for a warm-up
• The beginner step game twice and the advanced twice. I'm getting better at it. It helps that I figured out that green footprints mean to hover over the board and not actually step on it. Probably the biggest reason for my low scores yesterday.
• A long run, but it only took about 8 minutes, so not really that long. I managed to unlock a free step class and a free run, so I'm thinking this is where I'm going to be able to set my own time limits.
• I finished off my workout by doing the free step for 10 minutes. Turns out that is really boring and the Wii actually recommends you change the channel and watch tv while doing it.
• Lastly, just to say I could, I tried the first two yoga poses. I aced the first one, deep breathing. Turns out I am really good at breathing! The second one was a little harder and I really did feel the stretch.

As a reward for finishing another workout, I played the two new balance games that I'd unlocked... a funny one where my Mii is a penguin and I had to lean left and right to catch fish, and a really hard one where I floated down the river in a bubble, which I kept popping because apparently my balance is terrible.

So, two days down... 28 to go. So far I am thoroughly enjoying this form of exercise!

Wii Fit - Day 1

On Tuesday I celebrated my birthday... not a milestone by any stretch of the imagination but my family made it special anyway, by coming and spending the evening with me (and cooking me a yummy supper).

Cory and the kids (although Alex said "hey, I didn't pick that out!) gave me a Wii Fit to go with the Wii we gave Cory for Father's Day/Birthday in June. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. My brother set it up for me after supper and bravely volunteered to be the first one to set up a profile, while we all watched. I'm not sure how accurate it is because he has a Wii fit age of 40 (he's 28 and a personal trainer at a gym and in no way is overweight) whereas I am 33, hanging diligently on to my baby weight, and not the least bit active (going for a brisk walk for me entails walking at the pace of a 2 year old who likes to stop and pick up rocks every 20 seconds) and had a Wii fit age of 39... which is about 20 years younger than my Wii Sports age, mind you.

My 5 year old has an age of 26 (his sports age is 80, LOL) and my 2 year old... well, the machine declared him "2", so he was pretty pleased with that.

So... nothing overly scientific here, and a pretty inaccurate way of assessing people's level of fitness, but still kind of fun.

So we spent the evening of my birthday eating cake and messing around on the Wii Fit, taking turns using Eric's profile (cause I wasn't going to step on the scale and create my own until my family was out the door). We even got my Dad up doing the stretching excercises and ski jumps. It was fun, and really is a video game system the whole family can enjoy without too much guilt.

I have decided to give the Wii Fit a serious try. I really don't get much exercise with the kids around. If I go for a walk or bike ride, they are with me so we go their pace. I bought a treadmill in February, instead of joining a gym and I really was doing well with it until I returned to work. I haven't touched it since. Right now it's an expensive place to rest the remote controls for the television in the basement. So, because I've been given this fun gift, I've decided to try to use the Wii Fit every day, and see what kind of progress I can make. According to a certain person who doesn't have children in the home and has all the time in the world to clean hers (Flylady), it takes 30 days to establish a habit... so I'm setting a goal of daily use for 30 days. And because I know that public humiliation is a great weight loss tool (I was rather successful in 03 when I attended Weight Watchers and had complete strangers weighing me), I am going to record my attempt here.

So...

Wii Fit, Day 1:

I did the fitness test again tonight, and earned my little footprint stamp on the calendar (with the comment "you must have been too busy to work out yesterday"). My Wii age today is 43. I'm not going to tell you my weight (I'm not that motivated by public humiliation) but I will say that I have set a goal of 22 pounds of weight loss (that's the most it would let me choose) over 3 months (this is what I achieved at WW).

I decided to do a cardio regimen today. I learned, from Tuesday's experimenting, that the Wii Fit doesn't really set up a program for you to follow, you just pick and choose what you want to do. Not good for people like me that don't have a clue how to start.

So... I decided I could do whatever I wanted in AEROBICS as long as I kept moving in between games. Here's what I managed to accomplish in 30 minutes:
1. Warm up doing the running in place (short distance) --- I used my treadmill for this because I don't like running in place on the floor, and it worked fabulously. So yay for me, I brushed some dust off of it!

2. Hula Hoop - 2 rounds of this. It's hard on the knees, but fun catching the hoops.

3. Running in place (short distance but a faster speed) again on the treadmill.

4. Stepping - I found this one a bit disruptive because the computer kept stopping and reminding me to follow the other Mii's lead... thinking I was confused, rather than just horribly uncoordinated. I did get the hang of it, though, by the third set I managed to unlock an advanced step class, which I failed miserably at. Still, I had no audience, so who cares! :)

5. Running in place (on the treadmill) around the island. This took 7 minutes. It was fun. I had to follow a dog. Weird.

By this time I had hit the 30 minute mark and was really sweating, so I treated myself to two balance games and called it a night. Then, as a reward for my hard work, I played 30 minutes of Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, a Sega game I remember liking as a teenager, that Cory bought from the Wii Shop Channel.

Tomorrow I'm contemplating doing strength training exercises, but I'll see how I feel after the kids are in bed.

The trickiest thing for me was keeping my heart-rate up between games, as I had a hard time aiming the remote while I jogged in place.

Anyway, that's my Wii Fit experiment, Day 1. I'm aiming for 30 days, but I also know myself well enough to admit that I'll probably hit about day 5 and that's the last you'll hear of me.

We'll see! :)