New Year, New Fitness Routine with Wii Fit U

How many of you have New Year’s resolutions which include some sort of exercise?  How about your spouse?  I love to walk in the mornings to wake up, recharge, and experience God’s beauty.  It’s my thing.  I’d love to have my husband join me, but the truth of the matter is, I’m an early bird and he isn’t.  By the time he’s ready to work out, I’m well on my way into my work day.

This year, my husband has committed to taking better care of himself.  Yay!  When you’re not used to working out, any workout can seem so exhausting…and long!  Going to the gym is a commitment and yet staying home to work out is hard too, you need to have self-control.  With all the dance craze games out there, my husband decided he would dance his way to being fit.

Video Game Fitness

What I like about video game fitness is that it is:

1. Social – the whole family can join in
2. Visual – you can see how to do moves or even feel you’re a part of the environment
3. Track – today’s motion sensors can track your movements and show you how to improve
4. Measurement – games will measure your efforts to motivate you to do better
5. Competition – whether you’re playing against a computer or a family member next you, who doesn’t like a little friendly competition?

So this year, we pulled out the Just Dance 2013 game and began dancing as a family at night.  It’s been fun, but I knew there is more out there to help make my husband’s goal of losing weight more interactive and personal.

Remember many years ago when the Wii first came out with the Wii Fit and Wii Balance Board?  Remember how popular it was?  I never had one but many of my friends did and they raved over it.  Well now, there’s a new Wii Fit in town called Wii Fit U, which is made for the Wii U console.  And the good news is that you can use the Wii Balance Board you already have with it.

The New Wii Fit U Fitness Plan

As a surprise, I had a Wii U and Wii Balance Board with the Wii Fit U game and Fit Meter sent to my husband’s office.  He was thrilled.  It came with the new Fit meter, which is a new pedometer from Wii, that tracks how many steps and calories you’ve burned throughout the day.  I wear multiple pedometers (a fetish perhaps?) but have never convinced my husband to wear one until now.  With the Wii Fit Meter, he get’s caloric credit for playing the games he does in the morning AND for all of his walking during the day.  So now he has extra incentive to turn on the Wii Fit U each morning to see how many steps/calories he burned.  In addition, he checks in for his weigh in several times a week – which the Balance Board does for him once he steps on the Board and turns on Wii Fit U.

In Wii Fit U, you can set your goals of how much you want to lose and within what time frame.  The Wii Fit U does the calculations for you.  In setting up your profile, the Wii Fit U takes a picture of you, this picture will be saved for 5 years.  The idea is you can compare this picture to future pictures taken in the Wii to see how far you’ve come.

The Wii Balance Board will weigh you (minus the Wii U controller you’re holding) to determine your  BMI with the height info. you supply.  It then shows you where you fall on the BMI scale from underweight up to obese.  For some people, this will be the first time they are introduced to this measurement, it was for my husband.  The Wii Fit U will then recommend the ideal weight as an ultimate goal to progress towards.

The Wii U Fit comes with a large variety of fun games which incorporate exercise.  You can choose individual games or a set of games based on your time or fitness desire.

My husband’s favorite game is racquetball.  You hit the ball with your virtual racket, than run (run in place) over to the next spot to hit the ball when it returns.  My husband even breaks a sweat on this  game.

The Balance Bar is so called this because it tries to help people have proper posture and balance so that your body is not straining to keep an unbalanced position.  Games like this one where you are waitering a restaurant help you keep your balance.  You use the Wii U controller as a tray and balance it as you pick up food from the chef and deliver it to awaiting customers. I have dropped many a dessert on this game!

And what is all this fun without a snowball fight?  In this game you hide behind a sign and throw snowballs at others who are hiding behind signs.  You have to pop out from behind the sign fast enough to target and throw a snowball before retreating behind the sign to avoid getting smacked.  One smack and the game is over.  It’s a pretty fun game.

But don’t worry, it’s not all fun and games.  If you really want to focus on strengthening your body, there are a number sessions you can choose to help with it.  What I really like about the strengthening sessions is that they teach you the proper technique in breathing, moving your body, etc.

The Wii Fit U sells for $89.99 including the Fit Meter and balance board.   Or you can just get the Fit Meter and game for $49.99.  All Are available through the Nintendo Wii U Store.

A Mom’s Perspective

It’s only been several weeks, but so far my husband has been pretty faithful to working out with the Wii.  He typically does better when there are others working out with him, but in this case, he’s better off alone working out, as he doesn’t have to take turns to play a Wii Fit session.  And he’s been using his Wii Fit Meter too.  He gets bummed when he forgets to wear it, which indicates  the extra pull it has in getting him to check his progress in the Wii Fit U.

And because it’s on the Wii U, it’s a platform the kids are very familiar with.  I noticed a couple of times where my 8-year-old son has turned on the Wii Fit U to play some of the games…he’s even set up his own profile and received his BMI score. I’m excited, not only that he wants to have fun exercising too, but by the fact that every time he steps on the balance  board, he’s getting weighed and I can keep better track of how he’s doing weight wise, as my little guy loves the candy!

Who else is using the Wii Fit to keep in shape in 2014?

*   I was given a Nintendo Wii U and Wii Balance Board, Game, and Fit Meter in exchange for my opinions on Nintendo Wii U games.  All opinions are my own.