Getting fit with Wii Fit: Month 1

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Ach ja, I finally had enough and actually decided to get into shape… and I plan to do so, by playing Wii Fit (Plus)!

Okay… weird, but go on.

I have a weird relation with my body. I do consider myself “fit”. I have no problems running in my day to day life, I use my bike every time I don’t have to literally go to the other side of the city and yes, I do look down on people using the escalator, instead of the stairs, mostly because I am faster at the top and can do so not just metaphorically, but also physically. By all means, I am not out of shape… but I am not in shape either.

Since a child, I was always kind of overweight, despite playing outside all day and eating healthy. My best guess is that I just ate too much. As a result, I look fat. Not as fat as my weight might suggest, but fat nonetheless. Also, since no one tried to fat-shame me my entire life, I will have to do it now myself. I have to lose weight! This time for real!

The first component is simply the medical aspect. My youthful stride may carry me for now, but what about another 20 years? What about when I am actually growing old? I have already destroyed both of my knees once and since I am more likely to suffer from arthritis anyway, might as well do my best to lower the odds. Then there is the more common stuff like increased risks of high blood pressure, diabetes and strokes. I want to be able to go out with a bang and not because my body is failing me. I suppose this is all pretty uncontroversial stuff. Be healthy! And not just the “Green colored text printed on the front of a magazine promoting the next diet”-healthy, but the “Full impact of living a good life”-healthy.

The second reason includes basically everything me. I, and I mean myself by that, just want to get slimmer. I don’t want to be the fat kid adult anymore. I want to be normal. I want to go into the store and not worry about, whether they have the big sizes. Hell, just fitting into my jeans again would be great. I want to look into the mirror and be actually be proud of my body. Just imagine how powerful I could become, when I lose the (not) literal chains weighing me down. Simply being less self-continuos would boost my confidence immensely. I don’t want to think about my weight or how I look because of it. I want to take back that bit of control about my life. This is not the best I can be and while I am accepting of myself, I am also nothing to strife for. This has to change. I have to change. At the very least in this one area.

Sounds to me, that, instead of a gym membership, you might actually need an appointment with a therapist. But sure, whatever…

The last thing is the simple societal stigma. While I wasn’t directly confronted by it yet, I notice it by myself with my own attitude towards other people. And I want to be liked by society and other people, not viewed with skepticism, doubt and bad looks. I mean, how can one look at me and not think that it is simply a lack of will and trying to be better. I would feel about 50% less like shit, telling other people I watch anime, if I weren’t looking like a walking otaku stereotype. I want to change my perception of myself, not just for myself, but for the entire world. Not out of good will, but as a statement. I don’t care how superficial I am.

Imagine not getting the utter irony at display here…

And that’s why fat-shaming is good, actually!

NOOO?!

Honestly, I think there is good to be found in it being fundamentally my choice. It just not being a decisions that seems obvious, but actually pulling through with it and taking the first steps.

All jokes aside, this probably is not as big a thing as I want to make it out, considering how I very much do not stand at the other possible end of the scale. Get fit, live a healthier life. Simple as that. Long overdue, but better late than never, I guess.

Cool… ehh, so where does Wii Fit come into play, exactly?

Right. My parents bought Wii Fit, when I was a child and it was really fun to play, but most importantly, I actually lost weight by doing so, despite growing. Now, don’t misunderstand me here, I do not want to gamify training. In fact, it is the absolute opposite of what I want. In-game scores and achievements mean nothing, if I still look like a potato afterwards. If you die in the game, you should die for real, is what I am saying and there is a big difference between playing a game as intended and playing a game for good scores. If I lay my focus too much on the game aspects of Wii Fit, I doubt I will achieve anything substantial.

However, I want to abuse the systems of games, that motivate you to keep coming back and play the game. I’m talking daily log-ins, rewards, etc. I remember logging-in daily in War Thunder for almost two months, despite barely playing the actual game and here is, where I think Wii Fit will shine. A game can become a routine, even when only doing the bare minimum and in my case, this is perfect, because doing anything is still better than doing literally nothing. I tricked my gacha-poisoned brain into doing sports, or in this case, at least doing the daily body tests. Wii Fit also tracks your progress, as well as your overall performance and time spend. Numbers go up, chemicals in my brain make me happy.

The last factor is simple convenience. Not in the way of it being easy, but rather accessible without much additional effort. I could get a gym membership, but the only gym in my area looks kinda bad, costs 35€/month for at least a year and would take me around 15 minutes to even get there every time. Also, Corona is still a thing and I don’t want to risk it. With Wii Fit, it doesn’t even take me a minute and I can get started. Considering Wii Fit Plus and the Balanceboard only cost me 35€, I am also already even, compared to the gym.

Nevertheless, here are my thoughts and experience on the game so far:

Body Test

Every day, you can do a daily body test. The game essentially just measures your weight and left-right balance, followed by a quick balance test and a “cognitive” test based upon the Stroop effect, the latter one just being a balance test with small choices and decisions. In the end, it calculates your Wii Fit Age and either praises you for your good stature and balance, or shames you into oblivion. Good.

From a medical perspective, to almost every other angle imaginable, this test is complete and utter nonsense, though not necessarily bad or harmful. Even ignoring the obvious faults in the Wii Fit Age, your balance is not directly linked to fitness and the BMI is a scam that somehow got conspired into the medical field. I mean, I would have to reduce my weight to 90Kg to even be at the upper bounds of “average weight”, since the BMI completely ignores your frame and doesn’t properly scale with height. I’m 1.90m tall and wide like a closet so… yeah, not gonna happen. If we go with a newly proposed BMI, I would be in normal range with a 100Kg, which seems much more reasonable and healthy. Also, I’m still running a STR-VIT Build here.

While the test is kinda dumb, I am not opposed to it, if only it helps you track your data. I mean, I know my standing(?) balance is off and while this is no indicator for fitness, seeing it slowly but steadily shifting towards the middle feels nice and while the BMI is skewed, it going down means progress. Again, while it is nonsense for accurate analysis, it is not bad or harmful and since the game itself doesn’t really care about those values either, I see no problem with the body test. As already mentions, since it acts as your motivator, it is definitely a good addition to the game.

Anyway, when registering a new character, you are asked if you want to set a goal and since I know my “ideal” weight, I did so… except I did not. Wii Fit has an upper limit of 10Kg and three months, so I will have to repeat this process at least once. However, losing 20Kg over the course of six months seems reasonable, so it also fits my case.

The numbers, Hansi! What do they say?

The “first day” was late at night, after I fetched the game. I apparently weighed 121.3Kg. This brings me to another topic. What even is your weight? I mean, you weigh what you weigh, but the point is, that it changes constantly in both directions over the course of the day. Drink a glass of water or go to the toilet. You actual weight arguably did not change, though the scale will still do its job properly.

What I want to say is that I will basically calculate with a ±0.5Kg margin of error and most importantly, weekly averages and trends, instead of discrete daily values. I don’t even know how accurate the scale in the Balanceboard works on my relatively thick carpet, so my approach to analyzing the data basically comes down to whether the line goes up or down over a long period of time. I find it annoying enough already how some people are overly pedantic over small height differences, so I won’t even start that with weight. Let’s keep the game logic going here. It doesn’t matter how good you are, as long as the numbers go up… or hopefully down, in my case.

The numbers!

Okay, here we go:

Ignoring the first day, I started out with an even 120Kg. One month later and I am down to around 116Kg. I guess around 4Kg is fine for a month? It doesn’t sound like much, but considering I run around with what is essentially a set of 2Kg dumbbells less, I’m happy. Hopefully I can keep up that pace. I haven’t done anything for I think five days in this month, but with the exception of two, they were not out of laziness. Acceptable start, but we will see where I am in a couple of months.

I also haven’t changed much in terms of eating yet. I definitely started eating less, but have yet to make more substantial changes to my diet, though I already started eating healthier and try new dishes some time ago.

Now, let’s take a look at what the game actually offers in terms of getting fit.

Yoga & Strength Training

The yoga and strength training is something I never did as a child. It was arguably rather boring, especially compared to everything else Wii Fit has to offer. However, now I am an adult, boring stuff is part of my everyday life and I literally participated in a stream watching paint dry. I think I am ready for yoga.

The one main complaint about Wii Fit mostly boils down to how “easy” it is. By all means anything you will do in a more serious context, the gym or even just running outside, will be more “intense”. Despite this, I quite appreciate what the yoga has to offer. This is something even our trainer in the rowing club has drilled into our brains: “Your muscles and endurance mean nothing, if you are only as flexible as a rock”. Beyond that, yoga aims at the muscle groups that one normally doesn’t even know exist. It feels right doing yoga, since I don’t simply ace every exercise and even struggle with some. It also hasn’t gotten old yet circling through all the exercises every few days.

One might say, that I don’t even need Wii Fit to do yoga and while being absolutely correct, they are simply not right. The game gives you surprisingly good feedback and the live response from the Balanceboard makes correcting your pose very easy. I don’t know how to do most of the poses, so the game is a great help in this regard and keeps me corrected if I do something wrong. I do, however, wish the catalogue would be bigger.

The strength training is something I have yet to actively indulge in. Not only does the relatively low intensity and lack of equipment make it seem pretty pointless, it is also really hard to find the proper space in my room. If I were to remove my chair, I would be working with 1.50m x 2.20m of space plus the open space above my bed, which is fine for most of the yoga exercises, but hardly enough for the strength training, where I am also on the ground.

What also bothers me, though this is something that affects most of the game, is that you have to unlock harder difficulties and more repetitions by playing on the lower difficulties first. I kinda get it, but it is also annoying that I have to do exercises, that are so below my level. Like, doing ten slow torso twists barely counts as movement in my book, so going through this for a few times as something I have to do with every exercise, makes me even less motivated to tackle this whole block. At least there are different settings for the strength training, since yoga does unfortunately not.

Lastly, there is something I just have to get off my chest. I’m sure I am not the only to notice, that there is very subtle S&M-dynamic going on in this game. Your trainer goes straight for the throat any time you don’t perform well. Lost your balance and lowered your leg on the ground? Be prepared to be spoken down to with a condescending look in their eyes, as they tell you “Seems you are too weak!" in your face without any empathy for your feelings and emotional well-being. They then spurn you on and you just stand there unsure if they want you to succeed or watch you fail yet again. It’s actually kinda hot. Nintendo definitely knew what they were doing while creating the female trainer. Also, the Balanceboard constantly wants you to step on it.

Yeah… that therapy I mentioned earlier… please reconsider…

Aerobics

This is where I spend most of my time on. Since me losing weight is basically the same as burning all the excess fat in my body, just moving works pretty well for me. Aerobics features four core activities with some degree of variations: Hula Hoop, Step, Jogging and Rhythm Boxing.

Hula Hoop is pretty straightforward. You stand on the Balanceboard and circle your hips in both directions for a certain amount of time. I am not sure what the difference between normal Hula Hoop and Super Hula Hoop is, however you can increase the time in Super Hula Hoop, so this is what I tend to play. Despite its simplicity, it is surprisingly fun, though not that hard, not even with five minutes per directions. I also wished that there would be simply more to do. Once you have caught all the hoops by leaning left or right, you just keep circling your hips for the remaining time, which is a bit more than four minutes per direction on the longest setting. I basically phase out after a short period of time and switch to auto-pilot, while listening to music, so something to break the repetitiveness up would be great.

Basic Step and Advanced Step are the same thing, except the latter on is longer. You perform a series of steps on the Balanceboard while staying in rhythm with the music. This one is probably the most fun out of any of the games and almost feels like dancing… well, because it is practically dancing and since the Balanceboard also acts as a step-board, it takes some effort to keep up with the pace. If there is one thing to criticize, beyond the fact that it won’t recognize my side-step correctly, is the lack of variety. There is one (1) routine. That’s it. I can practically do the whole exercise blind, as I’ve already memorized it in its entirety. They have already build the basis for a step-based DDR, so I can’t imagine it being that difficult to extend this game in particular. I am playing Wii Wit Plus after all, so why is it still the same steps with the same music, even if it is an absolute banger? Hell, Wii Fit is a first-party Nintendo game, add some Mario and Zelda tunes to step to and make it its own full-fleshed game!

There is also Free Step. As the name implies, you do not step to a pre-defined routine, but just step at your own pace instead. The game only keeps track of the fact, that you are stepping at all and even tells you to switch to your normal TV. Stepping seems to apparently be an actually good and genuine aerobic training, though I am still not convinced of that myself. The problem is that the Balanceboard is not as high as your average step-board, so it is less effective stepping on it. I did it for 20 minutes for a couple of days, but eventually stopped, because it was too boring and even the fastest tempo was too slow for me. I can see doing it, if I were to watch something at the same time, but due to my complicated setup, it would be too much effort to keep switching my speakers.

Next up is Jogging. Like Steps, this one is also divided into its three own things. Normal Jogging is maybe five minutes of leisurely running on the spot. The point is not to be fast, but consistent, so you are rated not on speed, but efficiency… I think. I played it one time and moved on. The next one would be 2P Jogging, which I haven’t even played. It is the same thing as normal Jogging, however a second player can join in and run alongside you. This also the only game that can be played with another player. The last and most important one is the Free Jogging. Similar to the Free Step, you are left alone and are free to go at whatever pace you want. This is, without a doubt, the most intense thing you can do in Wii Fit.

While not as exhausting as the real thing, running on the spot still works up a sweat. Quite literally. I am drenched after I’m finished. I missed the feeling of being covered in sweat. As much as I thought the “circle” training in my rowing club was brutal, this is the kind of masochism I can enjoy. I started out struggling with ten minutes and am currently at the level, where I can consistently “run” for 20 minutes without much problems.

The first few weeks, my feet just hurt. In fact, the first time was so painful, that I eventually opted for wearing shoes. It was only a few days ago, that I realized I was not limited by my stamina, but by my feet killing me. I am (hopefully) thankfully over this phase now and my speed and distance greatly increased since then. Running until you just can’t go for much longer is surprisingly satisfying and makes you feel like you actually accomplish something. My most important takeaway might even be, how to breath better. I can now basically join Demon Slayer or JoJo with my new fancy breathing techniques.

Unfortunately, the tracking is rather wonky. The Wii Remote acts as a makeshift pedometer, however as you won’t hold the remote in your hand for most of the time, it sits in one of your pockets, meaning accuracy will vary. I tried putting it in my back pocket, but it either goes too slow or too fast, often switching between the two extremes at random. My normal pockets tend to be too big, but I eventually found a position where the remote stays put and seems to yield consistent results. As already said, I couldn’t care less about what the game thinks I have run, when I have run the actual distance in real life. I do however want to be able to see, if I make progress getter faster or can keep going at a pace for longer. Arguably the best way to track distance is either fetching an actual pedometer or building a kind of holster for the remote to strap around my thighs, which seems like a fun, but dumb idea. I could also just straight up get a treadmill (No, I can’t), which would also eliminate the whole “running on the spot”-problem, which may cause pain in hips, shin and ankles in the long run, if I don’t maintain good form.

Couldn’t you just go for a run outside, like a normal person?

No!? Running outside sucks and I am to self-conscious for that anyway. I look like newborn giraffe that has only figured out how their legs work an hour ago and I feel like every person I pass judges me on a fundamental level. The only time I would run outside is at 3AM, which is normally not a time I’m awake.

As with the Steps, I really wished Jogging would have more variety, as you run down the exact same route every time. I eventually started looking out the window instead, because the real world looks better than pre-2010 Nintendo graphics I have seen a thousand times. Let me run across the entirety of Wuhu Island, not just this one loop, or change the time of the day, maybe even the weather. I know this is in the realms of possibility, as Wii Sports Resorts is a thing (I know that Resorts was released after both Wii Fit and Plus, but still).

Lastly, Rhythm Boxing. Rhythm Boxing is arguably one of the most complex games in Wii Fit, as you have to use booth your arms and legs at the same time. The game consists of repeating certain moves while punching accordingly to the rhythm. Unlike with Steps, the instructions are randomized, so despite only being made up of four and a half unique instructions, every run is different. You also have to pay attention, or you immediately forget what you are supposed to do. It also took me a few days to master the individual moves in their entirety, despite being rather simple once you understand them.

Rhythm Boxing is just plain fun. Boxing is already my favorite game in Wii Sport and now also using your legs really sells some of the punches you throw. If you could combine this somehow with an actual punching bag, this would be amazing. However, this game is build upon rhythm, not power. It still feels like exercise though and you can always make it harder for yourself by just punching really hard into the void in front of you. Unfortunately, you can’t just hold some additional weights, since you have to hold the Wii Remote and the Nunchuk in both of your hands.

In general, all of the aerobics games are good, with their biggest weakness just being a lack of variety. Too bad that this is a Nintendo game, as the modding community would have gone wild with this game. In fact, just imagining something akin to the Steam Workshop or even Dreams, would elevate this game to new heights. Wii Fit is sparse in content and only so many people are fine with doing the same things over and over again, before getting bored. I have not reached this point yet, but just one or two extra games would help Wii Fit in this regard a lot. Until then, I will simply continue my daily routine of Advanced Step, Yoga, Jogging, Rhythm Boxing and Super Hula Hoop.

Maybe I will also find a few ways to make the training more interesting. I mean, what about doing Hula Hoop with an actual physical Hula Hoop. Not sure if my room is big enough for that, but it would definitely help me keep my arms properly raised, if there is a real hoop spinning around my waist. There are also foot extensions for the Balanceboard, which hopefully make the exercises a little bit more challenging. However, there is also nothing I can do in some other regards. While the Balanceboard is surprisingly big, it is not big enough for me. This isn’t even problem for aerobics, but for yoga, strength training and the last categories of Wii Fit.

Balance Games & Fit Plus Games

Gotta be honest here for a second, despite it being the most fun I had with as a child, I have barely touched both of these categories. I quickly played every balance game once and none of the Fit Plus games, despite them being completely new to me. As already mentioned, I don’t want to gamify my training. The games surely are fun in themselves, but are they not what I came to Wii Fit for. I mean, I want to get fit. There will probably come a day, where I just want to play and have a bit of fun with them, but until then, there is not a lot to be said about them. Maybe next time.

Conclusion

Just talking about Wii Fit as game, I doubt I have anything to add to what has not already been said by everyone else. It does not compare to “actual” training and a lot of the exercises are limited by the fact, that they are games. However, I don’t care a lot about it. This is not a review of Wii Fit or an article on how to improve it. For all intends and purposes, I have lost some weight and this is all that matters to me. Also, the game is fun and I like playing it.

If there is one thing I genuinely wish for, it is the ability to create training programs. I mean, they technically exist for yoga and strength training, where the small overheads quickly accumulate with every exercise, extending them to at least aerobatic would make things a bit simpler.

I will also take a look into modding the game. There are basically no mods for the game and I doubt I will get very far, but if there is a possibility to just add more repetitions to yoga or add step variations or even different songs to Steps, I definitely want to look into it.

The first month is probably the easiest and it is important, that I won’t give up along the way. I made progress and no one (except literally myself) will be able to take this away from me. Here is to a future self, that I can be proud of. We will hopefully see us in about two months with another update. And remember: