BrendaW's WiiFit-ness Diary

Dear Diary,

Have had my Wii since 1-15-09 and used Wii Sports until I got WiiFit a couple of weeks later. I used Wii Fit exclusively for a couple of weeks until I got Samba De Amigo and loved that. Really made me work up a sweat so I started doing that until Lady Gryphon suggested Helix in the games section of this forum. Helix is great and is even a better workout than Samba De Amigo.

Anyway, I'm 44 years old, married and have two grown daughters. One is 19 (and she is regurlarly using Wii Fit) and my other daughter is 22. I am very obese (I was going to say overweight but I'm trying to own up to what I am) and need to lose about 100 pounds to reach my ideal weight. I will be thrilled to even lose a quarter of that to get started! I'm 5'10" tall and weigh about 260 (it was a little under that last time I did my body check). I have fibromyalgia and an autoimmune disorder that could be lupus (my doctor has gone back and forth on that diagnosis but tells me it's something autoimmune). I also have degenerative disc disease in my back and have also had back surgery for a double herniated disc about 10 years ago. I'm actually having a pretty good year and have been feeling good and finding a fun, low impact exercise routine I can stick to has been great!

Although the scale isn't showing much of a difference since I started working out (actually went up about 10 pounds), my clothes are telling a different story. I wear stretchy pants and sweat pants as my primary wadrobe. My stretchy pants aren't needing to stretch out so much any more and are now baggy around my butt and thigh area. Still a bit snug around my belly but nowhere near as snug as they were when I started. I have a pair of sweatpants that are tighter than my others that I hated wearing because of how tight they were all over, tight in the legs, tight in the butt and tight around the gut. Now they are very comfy to wear!! Also my large boobs are a smidgen smaller and a smidgen when their huge to begin with feels better and am now fitting my bras a bit better. So the scale isn't concerning me because my body is definitely changing!!

Since I've gotten the Wii and started exercising (is it really exercise when you are having so much fun and enjoying it?) I've been exercising 5 to 7 times a week. I'd also say since I started using Samba and Helix I've been working out for at least an hour a day as well!!! When I was doing Wii Fit it was for a bout 45 minutes so I'm pleased that I've worked up to that hour. With Samba and especially with Helix that time flies by and that is something I've never really experienced with exercise before. Usually the time drags and I am constantly checking the clock to see how much time is left!

On Thursday when I was working out I felt tingly and a bit lightheaded so I stopped after only doing about 33 minutes. So my last couple of workouts I've been doing an extra ten minutes to try and make up for that time lost and it's not feeling any longer so I may continue to do keep those extra ten minutes on.

On Monday we had to go to a Wake and had to leave early in the day and didn't get back home until around 8 pm. I usually workout around 4 pm. We watched our normal monday night shows and I shocked myself by feeling this overwhelming urge to do Helix. So at 10 pm I did an hour workout! I seriousy stunned myself that I wanted to do it and wasn't feeling like I should do it. I wonder if I'm starting to get that good addiction to working out? Hope so because it feels good.

My next game will be that new EA Sports Active. I'm mostly looking forward to that for the tennis. The wii sports tennis is cute but the EA one looks like it mirrors your movements more realistically. When I was a teenager I had this thing called a tennis trainer. It was a tennis ball attached to a thick rubber band and that was attached to a heavy plastic base. You basically just wacked the ball and it would keep returning to you like you were playing with someone else. I'd play that thing for hours and I loved it. Playing the wii sports tennis feels a little bit like that but isn't nearly as satisfying and I liked what I saw in the EA sports for that.

Brenda

Brenda, I just want you to know that the scales are there to encourage us but also the tape measure is also a great encourager too. So when I don't lose any weight I pull out the tape measure and sometime there is a inch or two gone so I do agree with you about how you feel is more important the what the scales says for that day. Your clothes can say it all for you.

When you workout if it hard for you one day to do the whole 30 mins them break them up into 10 min workouts through out the day.When you break up your exercises you also keep you metaboliusm will keep burning through the day. That's what the wii fit said one time to me. Like yesterday I did 20 min in the morning and then while watching my shows I would do the free-step for 30 min but last night I did that twice so I step for a hour. And tonight while watching the biggest loser I will do the hour step again.

My friend has fibromyalgia and I remember her trying to exercise and then the next day she would me in pain from it. She started going to the chiropator and now she is doing fine. I have alot of back and neck problems I have the start of arthritis in my neck and my lower back. I hoping to get rid of that as I lose weight. I know my neck will never be the same because it straight and I don't have that curve in it so I carry my head heavier then other people. But I got adjusted the other day and now I had a headache ever since that one adjustment.

Well Brenda always do your best and the weight will come off so that you will feel better each day and each day is a new day for us all. Keep up the good workouts Peg

Thanks for the advice and the support Peg! I'm doing at least an hour each night but that one night I could only do 30 minutes because I felt tingly and lightheaded so I didn't want to push it. But I figured 30 was good by itself. If I had only been able to do 10 minutes I'd definitely take your advice and spread it the workouts throughout the day.

With firbromyalgia I definitely have to pay attention to my symptoms. If I'm having a bad period I know I will most likely not be able to do the hour workouts that I've been doing but I do plan on trying to do something each day. I've had those days like your friend where even a simple walk leaves me in agony a few hours later but fortunately for me I've been having a very good stretch. That's why I like the wii fit and it's other "exercise" type games because they are low impact and I can adjust them to be more difficult or easier depending on how much movement I put into it.

I've had some periods of neck pain that lasted for weeks at a time and I know how painful that can be so I really feel for you that you have that constantly to deal with.

Dear Diary,

Having a tough week this week with pain issues. Seem to be having a flare up of my symptoms but am managing to continue my works outs even though they haven't been as much fun this week and I've had to tone down my dance moves a bit. Hopefully this period of pain won't last too long. Have still been trying to do 5-6 days a week and have been managing to do my hour workouts but am in a lot of pain by the end. Kind of screwed up on Saturday where we went grocery shopping (which usually by the end I'm in pain from all the walking) but even though I was in pain and tired from shopping, I decided to do my workout later that evening and "work" through the pain & my fatigue. I usually don't work out on my shopping day. Well, that was a mistake because it started my flare-up and I should know not to push things like that. So everything is hurting now and I'm having a hard time sleeping because of my fibromyalgia pain. Today's workout was good, still toned down a bit on my intensity but was able to put a little more into than the previous two and am not as sore near the end as I have been so hopefully my flare up is coming to an end.

Anyway, have at least shown some progress in the weightloss department. Went back and looked at my progress from when I started but I'm not counting my beginning weight because I quickly gained over 10 pounds once I started working out. I'm attributing this to two things, first is that my wii fit board is on carpet and I was not using the feet when I first got it but added them a couple of days later and have since read that can give you a more accurate reading, and second I believe I've been putting on muscle because the weight continued to climb before starting to steady off even though I was exercising like a fiend. So I'm just going to considered my highest number my starting point and go from there.

2-04-09 - weight 263.5
2-16-09 - weight 261.7
3-10-09 - weight 257.1

There were other weigh ins between those numbers that fluctuated up and down but the 257.1 is the lowest I've had and is my latest weigh in numbers. And now that I'm not weighing myself daily it's nice to see a definite trend of down happening. Weighed myself last Friday and the number today was the same so glad to not see it go up.

Dear Diary,

Having a tough week this week with pain issues. Seem to be having a flare up of my symptoms but am managing to continue my works outs even though they haven't been as much fun this week and I've had to tone down my dance moves a bit. Hopefully this period of pain won't last too long. Have still been trying to do 5-6 days a week and have been managing to do my hour workouts but am in a lot of pain by the end. Kind of screwed up on Saturday where we went grocery shopping (which usually by the end I'm in pain from all the walking) but even though I was in pain and tired from shopping, I decided to do my workout later that evening and "work" through the pain & my fatigue. I usually don't work out on my shopping day. Well, that was a mistake because it started my flare-up and I should know not to push things like that. So everything is hurting now and I'm having a hard time sleeping because of my fibromyalgia pain. Today's workout was good, still toned down a bit on my intensity but was able to put a little more into than the previous two and am not as sore near the end as I have been so hopefully my flare up is coming to an end.

Anyway, have at least shown some progress in the weightloss department. Went back and looked at my progress from when I started but I'm not counting my beginning weight because I quickly gained over 10 pounds once I started working out. I'm attributing this to two things, first is that my wii fit board is on carpet and I was not using the feet when I first got it but added them a couple of days later and have since read that can give you a more accurate reading, and second I believe I've been putting on muscle because the weight continued to climb before starting to steady off even though I was exercising like a fiend. So I'm just going to considered my highest number my starting point and go from there.

2-04-09 - weight 263.5
2-16-09 - weight 261.7
3-10-09 - weight 257.1

There were other weigh ins between those numbers that fluctuated up and down but the 257.1 is the lowest I've had and is my latest weigh in numbers. And now that I'm not weighing myself daily it's nice to see a definite trend of down happening. Weighed myself last Friday and the number today was the same so glad to not see it go up.

Dear Diary,

Doing much better today! My pain level is manageable so this flare-up didn't last long at all. I do think that doing my workouts inspite of the pain helped. Did the body test today even though I weighed in a couple of days ago. I wanted to compare my weights results with Wii Fit and my old scale I dug out of the closet so I can do weigh ins without having to use wii fit. I was happy that they were extremely close to each others results. So here's my latest results:


2-04-09 - weight 263.5
2-16-09 - weight 261.7
3-10-09 - weight 257.1
3-12-09 - weight 256.4

I'm definitely going to try and wait another week before weighing in again. It's also been nice to see the numbers going down even though it's only a little at a time. Took me years to put this weight on so if it takes me years to take it off, even if it's a slow decline, I'll be happy!

Brenda