Tag: EA Sports Active

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Move It Mama Monday! Rekindling old exercise flames

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I’ve had an interesting couple of weeks, exercise-wise. After Ravencon at the beginning of the month, I was completely wiped out and had a lot of work to catch up on so I skipped my heavy workouts at the Y and the dojo. Then last week I suddenly found myself without a car for most of the time, which also prevented me from getting to the Y and the dojo. Which means I’ve been doing all my workouts at home, mostly on the Wii.

However, I’d once again hit a slump in my love for Wii workouts. I run into this problem every now and then. The two best games for Wii workouts, in my opinion, are Wii Fit Plus and EA Sports Active. These are my workhorse games. However, I’ve run into some problems with them lately.

For starters, I had gotten a little bored with Wii Fit Plus. Wii Fit Plus has plenty of games, but a limited number of yoga and strength exercises, thus the reason I bought EASA. I figured I’d do the bulk of my cardio in Wii Fit Plus and the bulk of my strength training in EASA. And this would have been ideal but I snapped my strength training band for EASA a couple of months back and hadn’t been able to find a good replacement in the local stores. The one replacement band I did find turned out to be way too short, causing the handles to dig painfully into my hands and making certain exercises impossible to do in EASA.

So what to do? Fortunately for me, one of my good friends, Mich, has worked with both games. She recommended I go online and order a package of Therabands to replace the band for EASA. This turned out to be ideal. The Therabands come in varying degrees of resistance, and each package holds about 6 yards of elastic band. So no problem getting a band to fit. I just cut one to the length I need. I also decided to buy a pair of weight lifting gloves to protect my hands from the resistance band handles. This has worked like a charm!

As for Wii Fit Plus, Mich mentioned how much she enjoyed the bike ride game. It is, after all, the only game that allows you to roam free all over WuHu Island, the setting for Wii Fit Plus and Wii Sports Resort. I had played the bike game a few times, but had abandoned it in favor of the running games because I thought the running games made me work up more of a sweat. But I liked the idea of being able to explore the game environment, so during my next workout, I decided to try the bike game again. If nothing else, being able to steer around on my own while hunting for flags would help stave off the boredom.

Well guess what I found? After successfully completing what I thought was the highest level of the biking game, I unlocked the “Free Ride” mode! I’m sure everybody else in the universe knows about this mode, but yours truly was completely in the dark about it. If you’ve been in the dark too, the Free Ride mode lets you roam the island for 30 minutes without having to hunt down any of those flags. There are 20 little striped balloons tucked away here and there that you can ride over and pop, but they aren’t the main point of the game. Instead, you can just roam wherever you like.

And I like that a lot!

So suddenly I’m biking on WuHu Island every chance I get. And now with my new elastic band and gloves, I can get back to strength training in EASA. I’m back to enjoying my Wii workouts, which is good, and I’m putting in more exercise time, which is even better. Yes, I’m sure I’ll hit another slump again, but I’m predicting by the time that happens, the new version of EASA will have come out, or I’ll find another workout game to add to my collection. In the meantime, I’ve been browsing around the Wii Fit Forum, finding out about all sorts of little Easter eggs hidden in Wii Fit Plus and Wii Sports Resort. Naturally, I am now tracking those items down in both games. Oh, and Wii Sports Resort can cause me to work up a sweat as well.

So I’m in love with my Wii again and enjoying every minute of it!

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Move It Mama Monday! Me and my Wii games

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You may have noticed there was no Move It Mama Monday post last week. That’s because I was 3/4ths dead after getting through RavenCon and Spring break with my parents visiting.

But it’s a new week now and I finally feel human again, so I’m starting to get back into the swing of things. And part of getting back into the swing means me evaluating what I want to do exercise-wise.

Lately, I’ve been spending more and more time on Wii Fit Plus with the occasional round of Just Dance. In fact, on Friday evening, we had a friend, Mich, come over for dinner and after eating quiche and pie and ice cream, we all decided we needed to work off a few calories. So we popped in the Just Dance game and 45 minutes later we had a room full of sweaty, exhausted people. I think we danced to about 13 songs, each running a little over 3 minutes. Hubster was so sweat-soaked, he had to change clothes afterward. Fortunately, Mich and I recalled previous bouts of Just Dance and dressed for the evening in sports bras, t-shirts, and sweat pants.

So Just Dance is on my list of favorites right now, but it’s a game I prefer to play with other people. Not as much fun doing it by myself. Wii Fit Plus is ideal to do by myself, but I’m hitting game fatigue with that one, having played it so much lately.

I’d like to get back into EA Sports Active again, but can’t until I get a new exercise band and some gloves. I’ve ordered said items and they should show up in a week or so, so that will take care of that problem. I’ve also gone ahead and ordered Walk It Out! because I’m itching to try a new game. I’m hoping this will keep my active and entertained through the summer, when it’s harder for me to get to the Y because the kids are home.

There’s one new game coming out next month that I’m very curious about – All Star Karate. It looks like the first Wii exercise game I’ve seen that actually combines some story-telling with the workout aspect. The screen captures on Amazon make me think this will be a decent workout, akin to Gold’s Gym Cardio, but with more variety. However, I’m a little put off by the feature of being able to “slap sensei whenever he nods off.” Being a black belt, I can tell you the last thing you want to try is to slap the instructor. Whoever came up with that feature of the game obviously knows jack shit about karate.

But, I may still get the game next month or in June, since it does boast other appealing features like being able to program your own katas. In the mean time, I’m going to try to get back into EASA and see how Walk It Out! works. I’ll post a review on the later when I’ve had a chance to play with it for a while.

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Move It Mama Monday! Another New EA Sports Active?

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I found this article earlier in the week, discussing the newest version of EA Sports Active coming out this fall. It looks like the new version will incorporate a new leg strap as well as an arm strap and heart rate monitor. No more remotes required to do the workouts, and if that’s the case I’m hoping it may possible to use hand weights instead of resistance bands for the workouts. I’ve broken two resistance bands using EASA and have had a bit of a time finding replacement bands that are long enough and sturdy enough to use with the game.

Supposedly, the new EASA will also be able to download new content for the PSP version. No work yet on whether the Wii version will also be able to do so. I’m hoping so, otherwise Wii owners who play EASA will be up in arms.

Other improvements I’d like to see, but that weren’t mentioned in the article…

  • More stretching exercises. A lot more stretching exercises, in fact.
  • More warm up and cool down routines. The EASA More Workouts only has one routine for warm up and one for cool down, and doing those for six weeks straight got old real fast.
  • Yoga routines. With the new wireless leg and arm remotes, I think this would be the ideal time for EASA to incorporate yoga into it’s workout options.
  • Bring back some of the old games from the original version of EASA, including the baseball, basketball, tennis and volley ball games. I put together entire workouts that were nothing but those sports games and they gave me a real workout. I’d love to see them brought back.
  • An option to pre-program EASA for a certain number of workouts a week based on what the user wants. The 6-week challenge demands you do 4 workouts a week for six weeks straight, which can be a little tough to work in if you do other forms of exercise during the week. I would rather have done 2 regularly scheduled workouts in addition to my water aerobics classes, karate classes, and other Wii workouts. Granted, I can still do that by picking the 6-week challenge workouts on my own from the menu and going through them in order, but the pre-programmed function would have been nice to have.

Keeping that last comment above in mind, I’m thinking of working EASA back into my morning workouts, maybe twice a week, interspersed between Gold’s Gym Cardio, Wii Fit Plus and DDR or the new Just Dance game that I’ve ordered. I don’t like to get bored, obviously, and mixing things up like this will give me plenty of ways to keep active.

If anybody has comments on working out with any of the above games, or with any games I haven’t mentioned, post them below. I’m interested in hearing what others have to say about working out with the Wii.

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Move It Mama Monday! I finished EA Sports Active’s 6-week challenge! Now what?

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Well, I finished the new EA Sports Active 6-week challenge two weeks ago, just before heading out to Farpoint. I was doing the medium level challenge, since I remembered how I’d fared doing the hard level challenge in EASA’s previous incarnation. I can say I did finish the challenge within 6 weeks. However, once again I did not lose weight. I was losing weight for the first four weeks, but then the last two weeks I had some problems. First off, I hit a high stress month, and I missed a lot of my regular non-EASA workouts as a result. Second, my hormones are all out of whack right now, probably a hangover from the previous quarter’s fertility treatments and my age. I’m 40, very soon to be 41. I expect my body to do wonky things like suddenly pack on 6 pounds. And the stress of so much going on this month did not help with my eating habits. I don’t care what anybody says, eating right takes a lot of work, and it’s hard to maintain healthy habits under stress.

But I completed the challenge, so my big question is, “Now what?” EASA recommends I do another challenge at the next higher level, of course. I’m not keen on that idea for a couple of reasons. The first is that EASA’s 6 week challenge requires four workouts every week. It’s hard for me to fit that in along with regular water aerobics classes and karate classes. Those classes take up my mornings most days, leaving me unable to do anything else until the evening. I could do 20 minutes or so of exercise in the evenings, but even that is hard to fit in. Princess has needed more supervision recently for her homework, which eats into my evening time. Plus, I really need to get back into cleaning the house. I can either do 20 minutes of exercise or 20 minutes of cleaning, but not both during the evenings. Trust me, I’ve tried. I’d have to live a very regimented life to do that, and that’s not possible with kids.

My other problem is that the workouts for the EASA challenge got longer the farther I got into the 6 weeks. Initially, the workouts where only 20 minutes long. Toward the end, they ran as long as 38 minutes. That’s a lot of time to devote in the evenings to a workout! And again, very hard to accomplish when I’ve got homework to supervise, a house to clean, dinner to make, children to read to, etc.

So what to do now? I figure with my schedule I could do 3 regular workouts a week, on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The Sunday and Wednesday workouts would be on days I have nothing else scheduled, exercise-wise, so I can afford to spend more time on a Wii workout. As much as 45 minutes, even. The Friday workout would be on an evening when I don’t have to worry about homework or cook dinner. That’s pizza and movie night, so I can easily squeeze in 20-30 minutes.

The question is though, do I stick with EASA for these 3 workouts a week, or do something else?

I’m thinking of doing something else. I’ve done EASA for 6 weeks straight, and while the latest incarnation is better than the previous, I am still getting bored with it after so many weeks. I’d like to cycle back to Gold’s Gym Cardio Workout and Wii Fit Plus. Gold’s Gym really lets me work up a sweat in very little time. And Wii Fit Plus would let me work on my core muscles and balance, as well as have fun with the games. So I’m thinking of using primarily those two programs on Sunday and Friday. I might still use EASA for Wednesday, but I’ll need to figure out if I’m going to build my own workouts or use some of the pre-programmed ones.

Of course, I could always check to see if there are any new Wii workout games out there. But for now, I’m moving back to Gold’s Gym and Wii Fit Plus. I don’t know if I’ll lose any weight with this, but the goal these days is to just keep moving and stay as healthy as I can.

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Move It Mama Monday! Snap goes the exercise band

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I discovered a serious flaw in EA Sports Active last Friday, and it caught me completely by surprise. I suppose I sort of knew about this, because it happened before with the previous version of the game, but this time it happened right in the middle of my work out, and it kind of stung.

I’m talking about my exercise band snapping apart, of course. The original EASA came with a wimpy elastic band that I wore a hole in pretty quickly. It definitely wasn’t made to last. But I had a much heavier band on hand and was easily able to use that one with the handles EASA provided. It worked pretty well too, until Friday.

I was right in the middle of doing some squats when suddenly SNAP! The band ripped apart just a couple inches below one handle. The long end snapped right into my leg, thus the sting I mentioned earlier, while the left end just hung there, a now useless stub. I had to pause the game to fix the matter, swearing as I struggled to undo the handle from the short remnant of elastic band. When I had the handle reattached to the remainder of the band, the whole deal was a good six inches shorter. That was great for the exercises where I frequently had to double up the band to get enough resistance, but not so much for a lot of other exercises where the original length had been just right (i.e. providing enough to make me sweat). In fact, I’m seriously afraid that the band is no longer good for some exercises, like the shoulder presses, because too much stretching on the now truncated band may cause it to snap again.

Sigh. I guess I’ll hunt down a new resistance band, or a set of them, and maybe some extra handles too so I can swap back and forth between resistance levels. I’d like to find something sturdier than what I’ve been using, but I don’t know if I’ll have any luck with that. If I do find something, I’ll be sure to post a note about it here.

I’ve only got one more week left on the 6-week challenge, and I should be finishing up my final workout in that on Wednesday. Once I do, I’m going to evaluate the final results and maybe rethink my exercise routine. EA Sports Active has definitely provided me with a workout, but it may be time for a change.

Enjoy your Monday and go work up a sweat!

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Move It Mama Monday! The real challenge of EA Sport Active’s 6-week challenge

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Well, I’m heading into the fifth week of EASA’s 6-week challenge, and it’s been interesting. I do like the new version of the game better. The exercises aren’t as painful on my knees and I especially like the fact that the game has a weekly weigh in to track my weight. Over all the game has improved, and it’s the only one I’m using right now for fitness on the Wii. And that’s the problem. It’s the only fitness game I can use right now, because the 6-week challenge demands so much time.

In order to compete 24 workouts in 6 weeks, I have to do 4 workouts a week (basic math, I know). And I thought that would be fine, especially with two of those workouts being done on days I don’t get any other exercise. But over the course of the last four weeks, a couple of things have happened. The first is that I was out of town at Marscon for three days and then came home entirely wiped out, so I missed my Sunday workout, and never got the chance to catch up on Monday. This is a real pain in the ass, because even now, a couple weeks after Marscon, I’m still one workout behind, and I can’t seem to find a day when I can sneak in a workout, because all sorts of screwy things have been going on with my schedule – parent/teacher conferences, prodding children to do homework, snow days, etc. Anything that interferes with me doing one of the two evening workouts I need to do forces me to do a makeup the very next day, which means I still haven’t caught up with that one workout session. And with 4 workouts a week, there are only 3 other days available to sneak in an extra workout. There is a reason why I didn’t choose those days to workout, and that’s because they are already full to the gills with other things to do!

So I’m behind by one workout and can’t seem to catch up. My second problem is that the workouts keep getting longer. As I progress through the 6-weeks, the sessions become more demanding, require me to do more sets and reps, and so on. I started out doing 20-25 minutes per workout, easy to fit into my schedule. Now I’m doing 30-35+ minutes a workout. Not so easy, especially when we once again look at those evening workouts. 10-15 minutes can be a huge deal in whether or not I get dinner on the table at a reasonable time, or manage to squeeze in story time with my girls before bed.

I’ve only got two weeks of the challenge left, so I will do my best to finish it, but I don’t think I will be doing another after this. I’ll have to wait until summer, when I my time is not as constricted by the demands of the girls’ school schedule and I can do more workouts in the morning. Actually that brings to mind a third problem, which ties into the other two – my enthusiasm is starting to wane. I hate exercising in the evenings, especially if the workout is tough. I’m usually dead on my feet by the time 5PM rolls around, and do not want to throw on my sweats and workout. As the workouts keep getting tougher and longer, I’m having to force myself more and more to stick with the program.

I know self-discipline is part of the challenge, but man. What I wouldn’t give to be able to set up a challenge that only required 3 workouts a week. Then I’d only have to worry about one evening workout, and that could easily be done on Friday, the day I’m least likely to be wiped out.

So, it looks like after this challenge, I’ll be doing something a little different with the Wii for fitness. I’ll probably still use EASA, but pick my workouts ala carte, and maybe throw in some Wii Fit Plus and Gold’s Gym Cardio Boxing, two other games I enjoy. In fact, I could easily see myself doing a session of each game once a week. That would round out my workout schedule quite nicely and combat the boredom.

But first things first. Finish up that 6-week challenge. We’ll see how I feel by the end of it.

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Move It Mama Monday! Does the new EASA work?

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It’s been over four weeks since I got the new EA Sports Active for Christmas. Since then, I’ve started the 6-Week Challenge (at medium intensity level) and am now half-way through that. Am I seeing any results?

Yes. Since Christmas, I’ve lost four pounds and I can definitely see more muscle definition. Even better, the new EASA doesn’t seem intent on destroying my knees like the old version was. A lot of the exercises that caused me so much pain have either been removed from the game or modified. So yes, this game definitely seems to be working for me.

However, I don’t believe I’m getting those results through EASA alone. Keep in mind, we are now past the holidays, which means I am also past the holiday eating. All those cookies, cakes, pies, candies, plus meat heavy meals are now three weeks behind me. I’ve since switched to eating two vegetarian meals a day, plus I’m drinking a lot more water. I’m not perfect at following these two rules, but I do them often enough that I think they’ve also had an effect on my health and weight. Plus I continue to take water aerobics classes and karate classes, both twice a week.

I think what’s worked more than anything is that I’m settled back into my old routine, with a little more emphasis on eating healthy and getting more exercise. Not being able to determine how the day would go over the holidays often meant I had no idea when or what I would be eating, so I ate a lot of junk and high fat meals as a result. I’d love to have more control over my schedule next year, if only so I could control my eating better. To do so, however, will probably mean I’ll have to make some changes to my schedule over all. Celebrating the holidays, in many ways, is like taking on an extra part-time job from October through December. To do all the things I’d like to do for the holidays – baking, decorating, sewing, parties, concerts, etc. – I’d have to cut back on my regular work during those months. It’s something I’ll have to think about before next October rolls around.

In any event, I’m enjoying the new EASA and the new eating habits. So far, I’ve cooked three vegetarian soups that did not suck, which means I’d cook and eat them again. In fact one of those soups, the carrot puree soup, was so good I’d make that any time and enjoy it.

So there you go, the secret to weight loss; healthy eating, plenty of water, regular exercise and a normal, livable schedule. Am I a genius for figuring out the obvious or what?

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Move It Mama Monday! The new EA Sports Active

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Guess what I got for Christmas! The new EA Sports Active. You know, the one labeled “More Games!” My younger sister gave it to me as a gift, and it has been very much appreciated, let me tell you!

If you’ve been following Move It Mama Monday for a while, you’ll probably recall I had a love/hate relationship with the previous incarnation of EASA. I liked that the game included plenty of strength exercises, but I lamented its lack of cardio activity and the damage it seemed to do to my knees. After completing my one and only 30-day challenge with the original EASA, I wound up having to take 2-4 Advil a day for a week to deal with the knee pain I suffered. In the end, I pretty much shelved EASA in favor of Wii Fit, although by that point I’d played Wii Fit to death.

Well, out comes the new EASA, and so far I’ve completed 6 workouts on it in the last two weeks. I definitely think the new game is an improvement. For starters, all the preprogrammed workouts now include a warm-up and cool-down session to help loosen up the old joints. Many of the original exercises that caused me so many problems with my knees have either been replaced or reworked, although this game does still include a lot of jumping around and lunging, so be careful if you have bad knees. Many of the strength exercises have been reworked too, making them more effective and easier to do in my opinion. And the biggest change? The scenery. No longer are you stuck at the local park/track doing your workout. Now the game centers on a beach resort, which I think is an improvement.

For my first three workouts with the game, I picked sessions from the preprogrammed workouts menu. I stuck with either the medium or easy workouts, recalling how much I had hurt when I first started with the original EASA. The workouts at these levels are still intense enough to make me really sweat, which made me very happy.

On New Year’s Eve, I started my 6-week challenge. Apparently too many people (including yours truly) had trouble completing the old 30-day challenge within 30 days, so the time frame was expanded to 6 weeks. It’s still a demand on the schedule though, requiring 4 workouts a week to meet that 6 week goal. I can do it, especially since I’ve started doing shorter workouts in the evenings anyway, but if you’re already on a regular workout schedule with some other activity, you might want to think twice about the 6-week challenge.

I’ll keep you updated on my progress with my 6-week challenge (and once again, learning from prior experience, I opted for the medium intensity challenge, not the hard!). Meantime, here are a quick list of the pros and cons that I see so far with the new EASA.

Pros:

  • The exercises I hated most, the ones that really killed my knees, appear to be gone or replaced by exercises that aren’t as painful to do.
  • The new scenery is much nicer. Quite frankly, I was getting pretty dang tired of that park in the old game. If I’m going to work out in a virtual world, then I’ll take a virtual tropical island any day.
  • The new EASA now uses the balance board to check your weight every week! And you don’t have to put up with any snarky attitude if you gain a couple pounds. The game just tracks your weight; it doesn’t try to destroy your soul (like a certain Wii Fit game that shall otherwise remain nameless…).
  • There are some interesting new games, like squash, water skiing, an obstacle course, etc., that are fun to do.
  • The challenge now takes 6-weeks as opposed to only 30 days. I can handle 6 weeks.
  • No more freaky inspirational videos from Bob Whatshisface! I don’t know about you guys, but that very nice man who pimps EASA really creeped me out every time he showed up on camera. The way he grinned, I was afraid he was going to jump out of the TV and eat me!

Now for the cons:

  • The game is still rough on the knees. I’m hoping that getting back into my regular water aerobics class will fix this. Water aerobics seems to go a long way toward strengthening the muscles that support my knees. I’ll need that to keep up with all the lunging and jumping that still shows up in EASA.
  • The new EASA doesn’t seem to have “More Exercises” so much as “All New Exercises.” In other words, a lot of the old stuff is gone. While they updated and improved the boxing, I have yet to see the tennis, volley ball, or baseball games. I can’t say yet if those are really gone, but from comments I’ve seen on line, it looks like they may be. This would be a shame, because those were the games that I enjoyed the most on the original EASA.
  • The warm up and cool down are the same for every single workout. I was hoping for more in the stretching department. Instead, every workout starts and ends out with the same exercises. That’s not just boring, it’s a waste. They couldn’t put together a few more warm up and cool down routines? How about more stretches for the arms and legs? Neck rotations even! Bah! I will never find a Wii game that really includes stretching.

And that’s about it. I’m hopeful that between my regular daytime workouts (water aerobics, karate) and regular evening workouts (EASA, Gold’s Gym Cardio, Wii Fit Plus), I’ll be able to get myself back into shape. We’ll see what the results are in a month, I suppose.

Next week, I’ll make a list of New Year’s health and fitness resolutions. I should have done that this week, but what can I say? I was just too danged excited about the new EASA.

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Move It Mama Monday! When the kids are sick.

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Yes, I’m getting this post out late today. My apologies. I had planned to get it written yesterday and then schedule it to run first thing this morning, but I got hit with a ton of deadlines. I have four e-chapbooks (smaller than an e-book, bigger than a breadbox), coming out in the next week or so, and I had to get a lot of stuff done to make sure that happens.

So today’s post is late, but that’s okay because the whole day was sort of thrown out of whack when Pixie woke up this morning sounding like she’d swallowed the granddaddy of all bullfrogs. My poor little pooter has a mild fever, a runny nose, and a nagging cough. None of this is slowing her down, mind you, but it is enough to keep her out of preschool for today and tomorrow. Can’t be too careful with the H1N1 virus running around, I suppose.

So I unexpectedly have a child home today, a sick child whom I cannot take to the Y nursery anymore than I could send to preschool, and that puts all my carefully laid out plans for the day into the trashcan. Or does it?

I actually look forward to the days the kids are home sick. It somehow lifts the burden off of me to meet any other responsibilities beyond bringing my baby warm ginger ale to sip and watching Disney movies on the couch with her. I call these days “Blow Off Days,” because I have the perfect excuse to blow off work, exercise, what have you. Depending on the severity of illness and my desire to take a break from the usual routine, I may blow off everything or just a few select items on my daily to-do list.

Since Pixie’s really not all that ill and since I’m gung-ho to catch up on a lot of stuff I’ve been putting off all summer, I opted to only skip a few things today. Rather than hit the Y this afternoon for a lengthy karate practice, I pulled out EA Sports Active (yes, my one month moratorium on that game is up) and did a short 20 minute workout. Then I popped a Disney movie in the DVD player for Pixie and hit the office. While she played downstairs and watched her movie, I worked on finances, e-mail, and other odds and ends. I took a break every now and then to check on my little poot, but she was doing fine, so I let her be.

At lunch, I decided to pop Pixie in the jog stroller and I took her for a nice walk around the neighborhood. Nothing too fast, just a chance to get outside for some fresh air. We stopped at the local playground for a bit and played there, then returned home. Pixie is in bed now with some of her Barbies while I finish up more work in the office.

I did not get the hard-charging workout I had planned for today, but that’s okay. I had other options, and I think that’s what’s important. It’s hard to keep up with kids, work, AND exercise if you don’t give yourself options. And while I might miss the sweat inducing activity I had planned, let’s face it. If my kid is sick, I may be sick too soon. Taking a bit of a break right now instead of running myself into the ground might not be a bad idea.

Pixie will be home again tomorrow; she has to be fever-free for 24 hours before she can go back to school (again, can’t be too careful). But that’s okay. She’ll be well enough that I can take her to the dojo with me tomorrow for kobudo class. I have a kobudo test coming up this Saturday, so I need the class. But I won’t be staying for the class of open-hand karate following afterward.

After all, I got a sick kid, and we could use the break.

*****

I believe on October 4th, Nintendo releases the new Wii Fit Plus. I’m chomping at the bit for this one. I love Wii Fit, but I’ve done it almost to death at this point. I need something new. EA Sports is also releasing an update to EA Sports Active, which includes new exercises and workouts. I had thought about pre-ordering this, but decided I’d rather look into some other Wii fitness games instead, like My Fitness Coach. This game actually looks like it might include some stretching exercises, something that both Wii Fit and EASA have so far ignored. Although, maybe the new Wii Fit will surprise me in that aspect. One can hope.

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
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Move It Mama Monday! Dear EA Sports Active

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Dear EA Sports Active,

I want you to know, we’ve had a lovely couple of months together. Really, I’ve had such a great time with your 30 day challenge and daily journal. But I think it’s time we take a break. Now before you panic, this is a break, not a break-up. It’s just that I need some time away from you to figure things out, like why my knees have been feeling like crap ever since we’ve been together, or why I’ve done nothing but gain weight since you came into my life. I know, these are difficult questions, and you’re not necessarily at fault. In fact, I don’t want to blame you, but I need to start looking for solutions to these two very troubling problems, and that means cutting back on possible contributors. Again, notice I say possible, not definite. I’m not blaming you. Really, it’s not you at all, it’s me, me and my bum knees.

I expect you won’t see me for about a month. While we’re apart, I want you to know I will be revisiting old friends, and yes, that includes Wii Fit and Dance Dance Revolution. I know you may not be comfortable with this, but I want to be upfront and about what I’m doing. And you are certainly free to hang out with whomever you choose. I don’t want you to be jealous, but I’ve always felt close to Wii Fit, and my knees are certainly more comfortable with the balance board than they are with your lunges and jumping, so I think maybe this is the right thing to do.

Again, we’ve had a wonderful couple of months together. All those training exercises, the upper body workouts, the volley ball and the tennis and other games… All that will remain very precious to me, and I’m certain that at the end of a month you and I will be seeing each other again, although maybe not as much as we had been seeing each other before. After all, Fall is coming up, and with the kids going back to school I’ll be hitting the Y more often to swim and lift real weights…

Oh, I’m sorry! Your weight training program is great, really! You should be proud of it!

Anyway, I have to go. I’ve got a weigh in at the balance board coming up, and I don’t want to miss that. Wii Fit gets so prissy if I miss a weigh in. I’ll see you in a month, I promise.

Yours truly,

Helen

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
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