I’ve been managing to lose weight fairly steadily since the beginning of the year, but it’s starting to plateau a bit and I can’t get in as much walking as I used to, so I need to try something different. I’m going to spend more time with my PlayStation 2.
Not with DDR, the primary cliche of geek exercise, though. Instead, I found a title called yourself!fitness, that’s supposed to analyze your current fitness, set up a workout program depending on what you want to focus on (weight loss, upper body strength, flexibility, etc.), coach you through the exercises, and track your progress. I have it set for weight loss for now, but the other goals will come in useful as well, lest I wind up thin-but-wimpy… You can also tell it if you have any extra equipment like hand weights or an exercise ball, and it will incorporate additional exercises using those. There are also different difficulty levels, so that you can bump it down to something easier if you’re having trouble keeping up, or ramp it up if you’re not exerting yourself enough (for example, at lower levels you do bent-knee push-ups instead of proper full-body ones).
I originally set it up for half-hour sessions every day, but hesitated and set it to 15 minutes for the first day, just to test. The workout went well enough, but upon waking up this morning I was still too sore to do a morning workout as I had planned, so I’m definitely way out of shape and can forget those 30-minute sessions for now.
The only problems so far are that it assumes that you have a lot more free space around you than I have in my living room, and it takes a while to familiarize yourself with the different exercises. Each workout goes through a number of different stages and exercises, and by the time I’d figured out how to match my movements to hers, that part would be half-over. And, of course, you look like an idiot while doing most of these, so make sure the blinds are closed…
There’s a meal planner as well, for sticking to a certain calorie limit. I’m a horrible cook and lazy though, so screw that. I’ve got better things to do than track down huge lists of exotic ingredients every day. :P
Now if only they had a 360 version so I could earn gamerscore points…