Wii fit update

"I haven't seen Keith in quite a while," said the Wii Fit yesterday, while Keith was in the room. Poor little blind Wii.

Anyway, after just over a month of playing Wii Fit, here's the routine I've moved on to:

6 minutes of hula hoop
4 minutes of running on the spot
30 minutes of step
10 minutes of running around the living room (I say "running", sometimes it's little more than shuffling)
10 minutes of boxing

I'm sure I'm doing myself some damage somewhere. Oh well. 40 more years to find out!

Weekend update

Ammonite said: I'm beginning to get worried about a Wii/Demonseed situation.

This had occurred to me too; the other week, while out for dinner with some friends, I lamented that of all the Julie Christie films my life could have chosen me to be in, I end up with Demon Seed, where she gets shagged and tormented by a computer, rather than Dr. Zhivago, where she gets shagged and tormented by a young Omar Sharif. I have no luck. (Ha ha, I have compared myself to Julie Christie).

Anyway, two weeks into the Wii programme, I failed to reach my goal. This might have something to do with eating Chinese food and, on one occasion, three Magnums in two days. What do you think?

Despite this setback, my actual training programme has increased from 20 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise to 30 minutes of feeling like I might collapse. It's hard work, but I'm certainly still enjoying it. I realised yesterday that one of the things I love most about it is that I can get up, put on my dog-walking/Wii fit clothes with the dog slobber on them from yesterday, walk dogs, come home and do Wii, then have a shower and get dressed in proper clothes. I don't have to start looking even vaguely respectable until all the exercising is done and out of the way. I don't have to cart around a kit bag with me to work or anything like that. And I walk faster now when I'm out and about.

My balance and agility are still v. poor, though. I still trip up a lot when I walk. But, you know, Carrie Bradshaw trips up at the start of her programme every time, and she isn't dead yet.

Wii fit interruption!

Bless me, readers, for I have sinned. It has been two days since I did any exercise. Yesterday I was too tired, after only having four hours sleep the night before. Plus I knew I was going into town in the afternoon to meet an old friend for lunch, so I didn't want to be completely knackered when I met her, so I gave it a miss, telling myself I would exercise in the evening when I got home.

HOWEVAH! In the evening when I got home, I put on my beach clothes and took the dogs down the beach for a run. I was standing chatting to some people next to a small entrance to the beach, when a guy in one of those little jeeps came up off the beach and Cody ran under his car. The guy didn't see Cody and drove over him. Much screaming from Cody, but when I got the guy to reverse off him, Cody was basically fine. He had to spend the night in the hospital on a drip and have a load of x-rays. He has to wear a big bandage on his leg and is an extremely poor soldier, but basically we got off very lightly. Funnily enough, the people I was talking to when the accident happened told both sides of the argument very well. Yes, Cody did run right under the guy's car, but on the other hand, a dog should be able to run around on the beach without having to watch for traffic. (Note that this was not one of the usual traffic entrances to the beach, which is why I wasn't really watching for traffic). Also the guy in the jeep, when he saw that Cody was not dead, just fucked off. Thanks, guy.

Really though, it was just an unfortunate accident and no major harm was done, except to my exercise programme. But it did give me a shock, which is why I spent most of the day today either eating Maltesers or sleeping rather than exercising. I'm not sure I can explain that adequately to my Wii fit trainer.

Ray's regrets

I'm sure there are a few, but one of the things I suspect Ray might regret is asking me to blog my Wii Fit experience. Because, you know, I will. In detail.

Today I had a 20 minute workout which included

• hula hooping
• jogging
• leg extensions
• torso and waist twists
• a lecture about my crappy balance (screw you, machine! I'll show you!)
• step class
• slalom skiing (which involved letting down my tiny Mii skiier, because I am unbalanced)

Life lessons taught today: I should visualise my ideal body while doing my muscle exercises (this is actually true, I should do that).

Conclusions come to about Wii today: I am going to ditch the male trainer in favour of the female one, because until now I didn't notice he has a stupid tiny ponytail and his smug gob makes me want to kick him.

Favourite exercise: Running, because it gives you nice backgrounds to run past so you feel like you're making progress, and you have a pacer Mii who runs just in front of you. Also, tiny Nintendogs run up to you periodically during your run, thus mirroring REAL LIFE. I believe it will not be long before Nintendo make a Wii Fit/Nintendog crossover, where you can bring your Nintendogs out for a run on your Wii Fit. Perhaps this has already happened.

I am thinking of making a new blog, which will just blog the Wii Fit, so that people who couldn't give a crap about my exercise "program" can avoid reading about it. I predict my enthusiasm for it will last approximately six months, though, so maybe it's not worth it.

The thing is, I do feel like a bit of a tool for having this latest gadget and getting all excited about it, but the thing is that it fulfils a long-held desire to be able to do a bit of running and training and so on without anyone seeing me.

Do you trip up a lot when you walk?

This is what my Wii Fit asked me when it had finished doing my balance test. It also tells me I have a Wii Fit age of 54. I am actually 38. Bastard.

On the good side, it did not say "one at a time, please" when I stepped on it. It also knows that I am a "friend" of Mister Monkey (because it asked me when I was registering), and so when I had finished my exercise program this morning, it asked me if I had noticed any change in his posture. When I chose "no" from the menu, it suggested that maybe I'm not paying enough attention to him. It went on to recommend that I try to build on our relationship a bit more by making more eye contact.

Yes. Life lessons for only €89.99.

The bloody thing is obsessed with "balance" and has a whole section of games just to improve your "balance". I'm beginning to think, however, that it's mistranslating the word, and what it actually means is a kind of combination of balance and reflexes. Because I can balance just fine, but it turns out I'm SHIT at heading footballs. Oh yes.