I came to the conclusion in recent times that it would probably be a good idea to try and get fit and lose some weight. Reason being that since I started my job I seem to have put on a little extra weight. So I wasn’t Kate Moss to start with, but I’ve been shocked recently when clothes that I used to fit in are feeling a little snug. It’s probably more than a little to do with the freebies we get at work that, let’s be honest, aren’t that good for a girl or her waistline.
I bought a Wii a couple of months ago on the pretense that I could buy the Wii Fit and work on trimming the waistline and get to a point where a defibrillator isn’t required when I reach the top of a flight of stairs. Up until now, the Wii has done a little Wii Sports, but has done more Guitar Hero – hey 5 coloured buttons and a switch are probably the only way that I’ll ever be able to play guitar with even a modicum of success despite the purchase of a guitar and amp my Mum made for me at Christmas. I’m a wimp – guitar strings make my fingers hurt. I’ll try it another day …. probably.
But I digress, back to the story. I’d been looking at the various Wii fitness aids/games (Wii Fit, My Fitness Trainer, etc), looked at the pros and cons, and reviews and eventually plumped for the EA Sports Active ‘game’. It arrived on Wednesday and I’ve been gearing myself to give it a whirl since. Well today I did the deed, and learnt a very valuable lesson. If you are one of the most unfit people on the planet do not, for the love of God, jump straight into the 30 day challenge – low impact or not.
I swear, I nearly died. I managed a 15 minute programme on the lowest impact level and didn’t do badly. But the absolute killer was the running (squatting coming a close second, swiftly followed by lunges -- basically anything requiring the use of leg muscles). Yes, there is a walking/running exercise which said 30-day Challenge uses as a warm up/warm down exercise. Not only did those bowling balls of mine very nearly give me a couple of nice black eyes (may be time to invest in a good sports bra, with extra scaffolding!!! ;)), but I could feel the excess inches also flapping around and hurting like hell and I hit that wall so hard and so fast that my legs were jelly by exercise number 3 …. That was about 4 minutes in. I did eventually say goodbye to 156 calories though ....
That’s not the worst part – although it comes close – the worst part was, a mere 5 minutes after my ‘low impact workout’ finished I discovered I had found muscles. My GOD I was getting stiff already. I guess that proves it’s done me some good but even as I write this 5 hours later and after a nice soak in a hot bath I can still feel the stiffness setting in. Every time I get up I’m walking like a navy …. or in an arthritic style. I’m so going to feel this in the morning.
Of course I recommend it right now. Does a bit of everything – lunges, squats, boxing …. inline skating!?!?!? – but time will tell whether it gets boxed away after a few weeks or it kills me. But nevertheless, the moral of the story is this. Don’t EVER think that you can just jump straight in at the deep end even if it is just a video game. Work up to it. I think I may have to try something different tomorrow …. if I can walk …..
