EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - Day 12

Balance Board day, which is the second time I've used that. It would have been the third, but I accidently turned the Balance Board option off when the second day came aorund.

I kind of like the Balance Board exercises. It's essentially getting two birds with one stone. I get my lunges in as well as whatever upper body movement the software is making me do. Today it was tennis and vollyball, both of which are made harder with the Balance Board.

I have eight more workout sessions to go before the challenge is over, and I'm aiming to get this done by the 16th of this month if not sooner. When that happens, I'll have my full review on the product.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - Day 11

Technically, Day 17 Workout 11, but you get the idea.

Mostly sports drills with some upper body resistance band stuff. Was forced to do squats back-to-back against jump squats. Kind of hurt, to be honest, but not as bad as the jumping lunges from the last week. Barely made the calorie burn goal for that workout, but I think it is because I burn the most calories on the track than anywhere else in the program. Go figure that running away from my problems would turn into a health benifit.

Wii Fit has me at 155 lbs. today. Hopefully, I will stay there or at least get closer to 150 by the end of the challenge. Other than that, I'm feeling really good right now. Hopefully that's the change that I need to get everything else rolling, or at least get some self-confidence back.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - The Half-Way Point

I got my replacement band from EA but is very hesitant of using it. In the meantime, I’ve forced myself to use the medium intensity Pilates band that I bought when the band first broke. Upon my second set of shoulder presses, I noticed the band got looser. I’m worried that this may be the first sign of it potentially snapping on me like its easier brother did several days earlier.

In any event, I’ve completed Workout 10 of the 30 Day Challenge, but noticed that my progress has fallen behind. The calendar cataloguing your progress showed me at Day 16 out of 30, which essentially means I’m a day behind now. In order to catch up and finish this challenge on time, I need to do the last half without a break day. I can probably squeeze in one or two break days, but any more and I won’t finish on time.

The thing about this program is that it is very forgiving in the 30 Day Challenge. It didn’t tell me that I was a day behind. I just noticed it on my own. If you can’t complete the 30 Day Challenge in 30 days or less, it doesn’t really care from the looks of it. Just try again and hopefully you can do it the second or third time around. It’s similar to how the game tries to lock you out of working out on break days. It prompts you with information as to why it is important, but ultimately, it’s your decision to work out or not.

Wii Fit says I’m hovering at 156. I took my Wii Fitness Age, which is a gimmicky version of finding out your physical fitness age, and it claimed that I was 20. Last time I took it was a month ago, and it said I was 23. Mom took it, and it said she was 30 years younger than she really is, which is very good for a senior citizen.

On a related note, Wii Fit PLUS was announced at E3 recently. It’s the sequal to Wii Fit offering similar options to Active, mainly the creating a customized workout that will go from one exercise into the other for however long you wish to work out. That alone is reason enough for me to consider it, as I now finally have a simple and easy way of incorporating yoga into my daily fitness routine. Strangely enough, with that announcement, I came to the epiphany that I’m more interested in fitness games now than I am in, say, the upcoming Ghostbusters game or even my copy of Punch-Out!! First a dropping interest in porn, and then a dropping interest in video games. I can only wonder where my interests will be when I get Spore: Galactic Adventures in the mail next month.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - I Was So Fucking Close!!

Today would have been the halfway mark of the 30 Day Challenge, the bulk of the software's main draw. I was on the last third of the today's routine, feeling really good about things. While in the middle of a shoulder press, the resistance band snapped. TWICE. I was left with nothing but the nylon handles and two pieces of rubber.

Seeing as how I bought a three-pack for the first replacement, I decided that maybe I am getting stronger and it is time to graduate to the next level. Upon testing the mid-range band, I found out that these pilates bands are not designed to be stretched in the way Active wants me to. I was barely able to do a bicep curl, but doing a shoulder press would result in this brand new band snapping as well.

As such, Active is, essentially, unplayable right now. I could just go through all the routines and turn off the upper body exercises, but that would feel like cheating in a fitness program. It's that whole "pushing yourself" thing that's been my ulterior motive through these last several days. Increase my self-confidence in physical appearance, and the rest will hopefully follow suit.

As such, I'm rather depressed right now. So much so, I may take a three-hour walk after my shift with Skip.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - Day 9: Back to Basic

Day 9 was suppose to be Back to Basic routine, but it served as more of an introduction to the most difficult and painful exercise I've ever seen in Active: Squat Hold. I found out from my sister that when she injured her knee, her physical theorpist had her doing this same execrise. She said I was doing it wrong, but no matter how much I tried to correct myself, holding that position for 45 seconds is so difficult.

I did find myself immediately popping in Punch-Out!! after the workout. I also have this strange want to seek out a fighting game that offers a Create a Fighter option that is as strong as Spore. Meanwhile, my porn runs have dropped like a rock since I started this 30 Day Challenge. I wonder if that means something.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - Day 8 (AKA Lather, Rinse, Repeat)

Today’s routine was a lot of the same. It had me doing side lunges, curls, and lifts one after the other. In between each set of those three exercises, I would be sent to the tennis court or inline skating. Both of which I am no good at, causing me to finally hear some negative feedback from the personal trainer that bordered in insulting me. Seriously, one of the lines is “Did you even show up or is that your identical twin falling over themselves? Hit the showers!” Not very encouraging. At least Wii Fit is a little bit nicer about pointing out you’re not doing something correctly.

The projected workout routines have gotten longer, but the calories burned goals have not increased any. It’s kind of contradicting what I was reading about how this challenge works.

All I know is that today’s rating is the lowest I’ve gotten due to my lazy day yesterday. Sitting around for six hours reading internet buzz and listening to iTunes downloads is apparently very damaging to my overall health score.

Scale says I’m stuck between 155 and 156 for the last two days. Still not happy about that.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - Day 7

I intended to take the day off and be lazy, but every bit of slothful actions I did just made me feel very guilty about doing them. Then again, I’m Catholic by association so having guilt is a given. By lunch when I had fast food with my mom and sister, the guilt was so high that I decided to go ahead and bump the Day 7 workout up a day.

Active didn’t mind. It gave me the obligatory warning about how resting is important to developing muscle strength and cardio endurance, but after that prompt disappeared, I was allowed to do the Day 7 workout.

It was a balanced workout featuring an equal amount of lower and upper body exercises with some minor cardio. Introduced into the mix was volleyball, which was a welcome change after failing at the non-Balance-Board version of the tennis drills. Seriously, I hate tennis. I can only imagine how bad I’ll be when they introduce the baseball drills into the workout.

The thing that I took away from today’s workout was how strangely compact the setting is. I was expecting a different location for the volleyball drills, but noticed the court is next to the track during the running portion of the workout. In fact, with the exception of the inline skating drills, everything is near the track. You can see the gazebo where the boxing and cardio dancing drills next to the tennis court next to the volleyball court. On the other side of the gazebo are the platforms you do the upper and lower body exercises on, which are next to a basketball court. Across from that is the baseball diamond. The whole setting is very utopian, and I swear one of the NPCs looks like Oprah. I guess the visuals are not very stimulating any more and just serve as instructional now. As a result, I am starting to take note on little details that I failed to notice the first several times through.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - Day 6

Today's routine was fairly light. Running, combination bicep curls and upright rows, some boxing drills, and an introduction to basketball using the Balance Board. Seems weird how I just breezed through that workout and still managed to burn 10 calories more than the projected results.

Another strange bit that happened this morning is that my weight dropped to 154. Dropping anywhere between 2 to 3 lbs. over the course of 24 hours is said to be normal, but keeping it off is where the challenge is. I'm using Wii Fit to keep track of my weight with a goal set to be around 150 lbs. by the end of the 30 Day Challenge. I'm actually aiming to be at about 135, but I'm not expecting to get that lean.

That said, the Journal today did something rather funny. It assumed that because I haven't reported eating fast food that I've been cooking my own meals at home. In reality, I have been going to fast food resturants but I've been ordering off their healthy menu. That's one of the interesting things about where I work. You can go to the burger joint down the block and still find something that will please the health nuts. For the Journal to assume that I've been cooking my own meals when I haven't even logged in cooking in the Other Activities Survey is rather strange.

Tomorrow is a break day, and I intend to keep to it. My arms are now what's hurting since getting a new resistance band. It's also the first day off I've had from work since getting Active, so it should be interesting to see if my behavior has changed any. Why do I say that? Because normally I just sit around and surf the internet on my days off. When I'm not walking to the bank to deposit my check, that is.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - Day 5

You want to know the strange thing about today’s workout? I almost forgot I did it. I was all set up and ready to go this afternoon only to find that I had a little red check mark next to today saying I completed the workout.

I’m not saying that Day 5 is easy, as I still have the program set to a medium intensity and I have a new resistance band. I’m just saying that it is starting to become routine and habit forming.

What I do remember is the odd looping that today’s workout had. Basically, it started with some running, transitioned to squats and lunges, had me do a combination exercise involving bicep curls and shoulder presses, and then had me hit some boxing targets. After the boxing exercise, the program went through the previous exercises in reverse order. The only thing that broke it up was a run of inline skating, which still is taking a toll on my knees.

Wii Fit says I dropped back to 157, though it still feels rather odd that I was ever close to that weight at all given how much I’ve been eating and what I’ve been eating. Thankfully, I’ve been avoiding MacDonald’s for at least a month now, but that doesn’t mean I’m in the clear from fatty foods. The only thing that’s making this change in my diet so damn difficult is my love/dependency on soda. One every so often is okay, but I really want to have at least one a day, and I know that’s a bad thing.

God, I miss soda...

The Resistance Band Goes SNAP!

How unfortunate. I was expecting this to happen, but I didn't expect it to happen so soon.

In an effort to increase the intensity of the strength training exercises, I decided to shorten the space between the two grips instead of opting to fold the band over itself. The result was the band snapping. Well, tearing, technically.

Not knowing what to do, I called GameStop to see if they sold replacements. The person I talked to said that EA only sells a kit for multi-player options which includes an additional leg strap and resistance band. I was planning on buying this, but that would ultimately mean I would still be down a band. The person I talked to was very knowledgeable about the product, and suggested I go to Wal-Mart and pick up some pilates band. They are essentially the same thing, and they are cheaper.

So I did. The $10 set comes with three different colored bands, each representing a different level of intensity. Immediately, I noticed that the "easy" band was thicker than the band that came with the game. It was also significantly wider, which made tying it to the grips that much more difficult. I tested it with a shoulder press, which is the farthest the band should stretch on any given workout session for the game. And I got a stronger resistance than I did with the pink band that came with the game!!

Incidentally, these bands are the same ones that my sister used when she was in ballet with her warm up stretches. She said she used to use the green one, as the orange one was not strong enough for her. And I'll be using the orange band for tomorrow's workout. This should be very interesting.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - Journal Discovery

I didn't score high enough today on the break day to get a Gold Medal rating without exercise. But I got something I didn't expect from the program. Suggestions based on data I gave.

The game said I've been consistantly unable to reach the ideal of liquid intake. So, it suggested that if I don't like water, I should drink tea or broth or even skim milk. I didn't expect to see suggestions based on data. Randomly generated compliments or suggested based on the data I entered five minutes ago, yes, but not something that appears to be built from the previous days.

Another surprise is I'm not sore, but I'm also kind of energetic. Not to the point where it feels like I've been alert for hours, but enough energy where I almost did my normal/long route of walking Skippy. I'm taking that as a good sign.

Wii Fit says weight is the same, staying just a few ounces over 158. I still feel fat, though.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - Day 4

Before I go into my Active experience, I would just like to point out that it’s been over a month since I started this whole “exercise gaming” regiment with Wii Fit. Upon looking at my BMI and Weight line graph on the Wii Fit Channel, I was slapped in the face by reality. Since I started, I only lost and kept off one whole pound. It’s kind of depressing to me. So I talked to the two athletes I know from work, and only one was able to help me out. It became clear that I had to up my intensity. Burn more calories, breathe harder, and if I don’t feel different as a result of the workout, I’m not doing it properly. And if I had the time, work out until you can’t move.

Hence why I held off doing the Day 4 exercise until later in the day today. Not only did I change the intensity from low to medium, but I also added some other workouts to extend what I was doing. Outside of walking the dog, that is.

But the whole “work out until you can’t move” angle was a stupid thing to go by for today. The routine featured Jump Lunges and Jump Squats, both of which took a toll on my knees. Apparently, both my sister and I inherited my dad’s bad knee. Did my body feel different after that routine? Yes, and it hurt more than when I first started and I felt like my thighs were going to explode. Could I move afterwards? Just barely, but only enough to get me to the nearest chair so I can take all the pressure off of my knees. Looking ahead, I’m not out of the woods yet. These Jump Lunges and Jump Squats will become a regular part of the routine now that I upped the intensity.

All is not bad news, however. Much to my surprise, I got an instant Gold Medal rating today before doing the workout for the challenge. How? Because I improved on both my eating habits and outside activities. Whatever I did yesterday was enough to warrant a rating of 86% by themselves! With another break day coming up tomorrow, you can bet that I’ll be trying to repeat that accomplishment again when I record today’s activities in the Journal tomorrow.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - Day 3...ish...

If you don’t count yesterday, today would be Day 3 of the 30 Day Challenge. Why? Because technically I didn’t do a 30 Day Workout yesterday.

Today’s workout was kind of a false advertisement. The Trainer Audio said at today’s prompt that we would be focusing on Upper Body stuff while incorporating the Balance Board. I thought, ”Gee, I wish I knew that yesterday so I could have done that then.” Turns out I was wrong. There were some track stuff and lunges thrown in there to give the work out some balance.

The Balance Board workouts were Tennis—which I hate—and cardio dancing—which for some reason isn’t as fun. Again, I had sensor issues and my first Wii Accident since getting the system. During the tennis exercise, I hit the armrest of a chair that was closer to me than I though. I guess the next time I do those exercises I need to step farther back. Either way, the Balance Board didn’t register my lunges properly nor did it register my steps on and off the balance board during cardio dance.

Speaking of which, what the hell kind of dance move is “The Shopping Cart?” I looked at the on-screen people to see how to do it for the short time you are suppose to do it, and it didn’t look like any dance move I’ve seen before. And I’ve seen a lot of cheesy dance moves come out of this cardio dance exercise on YouTube.

Because I worked out yesterday during a break day, the journal is still encouraging me to take some time off. My next break is this Sunday, so I may actually listen to it. After all, my thighs are still about ready to explode.

Oh, and now weight change since yesterday. I'm still hovering over 159 lbs., which Wii Fit is calling Overweight for my height and age.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - The Break Day That Didn't Happen

Okay, I know I said I'd give Wii Fit some attention today, but the fact of the matter is my thighs still hurt from the days before. And since the bulk of what I do on Wii Fit involves the legs, I opted out of it for my own health. Ironic, no?

Strangely enough, Active gave me the option of taking a break, which was all over the Journal today, or actually doing the next workout session. Early in the morning, I decided to not bother with the program, much to the software's dislike. Talk about fickle! What does it want me to do? Take a break or not?!

But later today, I decided to create a custom workout that focused on my arms. They weren't burning yet, and I figure burning something is better than nothing as far as how today went. I mean, 20 minutes walking the dog? Not really a work out.

And Active let me perform this session. It even graded me for the day. And in case you are wondering, I didn't do very well, favoring only a 79% overall for the day. Why? Because I didn't meet the calorie burn goal for my custom work out. Who knew boxing the heavy bag 400 times in under two minutes would be so difficult?

The biggest surprise is how much my diet has changed in just two days. I work around soda and for the first time I didn't fill up on it. I work next to a hamburger grill, but instead of ordering my usual, I got something off of the healthy menu. I hope to make a habit out of this. It's bad enough the software keeps getting on my ass about not eating enough.

In other related news, my dad tried out the resistence band that came with Active. He said it doesn't give much resistence. I trolled the EA Forum set up for Active, and it appears he's not the only one that believes this. In fact, a lot of people are going out and buying better, more resistent bands to use. While it is a smart option to consider, I'm sticking with this one for now. Despite my first impressions, it's actually doing the job as advertised.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - Day 2

I knew I was going to feel it in the morning, and boy, did I. I lost a good three hours of sleep because I woke up with sore legs. But, as the cliche goes, "No pain, no gain."

So with sore legs and all, I hit the second day of the 30 Day Challenge. Today's workout was centered around limbs and strengthening them. It incorporated variations of exercises that was done the day before as well as including the sport I suck the worse at second only to Baseball. Tennis.

And it is there that I noticed some failing programing within the software. You can fail, and I did. I failed hard. None of the tennis balls coming my way hit the blue target on the other side of the court and my counter didn't go up at all. Both on the forehand and backhand strokes. Strangely enough, my calorie burn went up as normal.

But today should be a day of oddities. The Wii Remote failed to send a signal that said I was doing an exercise drill properly. Then, when I was signing out, I noticed that the battery life was already at 50%. And to top it off, my trainer today sounded like Greg Grunberg if he smoked several packs a day. Yesterday, he sounded like Duo from Gundam: Wing.

But the oddest thing was the fact that I burned more calories than projected but didn't sweat as much as I did. I somehow gained 2 pounds since yesterday, so this morning I was training at 158 lbs. The math said I would burn 112 calories with today's workout, but I ended up burning close to 130.

My journal was loaded with compliments on all my achievements from yesterday, as well as from today's work out. It's also the first time I've noticed how much of the workout takes up in your daily medal, which is about 50% of your daily score. But that's where the compliments end. My food survey said I need to eat more in general, as well as take in more fruits and veggies. The Outside Activity survey apparently scored me lower than yesterday by at least half due to some fine print I didn't notice where it recommends not recording any activity that wasn't done for at least 15 minutes at a time. Go figure.

Thankfully, I got a score of 81%, which is still a Gold Medal for the day. I even got a congrats video from Bob Greene for completing a fitness goal.

Tomorrow, the 30 Day Challenge is telling me to take a break. I think since that will be the case, I'll be spending some time with Wii Fit. Yeah, I know, I'm cheating on my outside activity survey, but walking Skippy for 20 minutes isn't really an intense activity.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - The First Day

Originally, I was going to do a comparison review of Active against Wii Fit, but I figured blogging on a daily basis during the product's 30 Day Challenge would be better. It's also going to be the only series of posts I'll tag for this blog for easy searching.

To start off, this product is hardly a game. The marketing team from EA was right in saying it is a personal trainer in a box. What they don't tell you is that there is some assembly required. Though simple, it is kind of slap in the face to the ill prepared that just wants to jump right into the program.

After all the physical set up is done, I fired up the Wii and was prompted to create a profile. It asked for the same things that Wii Fit asked for. Age, height, gender, but I had to input the weight myself. The product is designed so that it is compatible with the Balance Board but isn't needed. As such, there's no "scale" feature for you to utilize if you don't own a bathroom scale of your own. It's because of this that I've installed the Wii Fit Channel and placed it next to the Disc Channel. That way I can remember to weight myself every day and update Active's profile for me when appropriate. Apparently even one pound in either direction causes a different calculation of calorie burn for the workouts. Go figure math would be involved.

Oh, and today I weight in at 156 lbs.

Alright. Main Menu. It makes sense here, the biggest button here is the Journal where all your information will be saved and recorded. They want you to go there first, so it is the biggest button on the screen. Second biggest is the 30 Day Challenge, which makes total sense. Third is the Preset & Custom Workout button, with the smallest going to the Settings and (much to my surprise) an Info button that essentially functions as an online manual.

The Settings menu is fairly limited. Check to see if you have a Wii Balance Board and if you want to use it or not in your workouts. Create a custom playlist of music that came with the game so that you have something more pleasurable to listen to while you are working out. You can even review tutorial videos for exercises you've done in case you forgot or are bored.

The Preset & Custom Workouts are for those that don't want to do the 30 Day Challenge but still want to work out. You are presented with a slew of options ranging from both easy and hard settings that run the gambit of a 15 minute work out to a whole hour! Surprisingly, you can even access the various 30 Day Challenge lists in all three of their difficulty settings. If you have a favorite set of exercises or you can't find the workout that's right for you, you have the option of creating one. All of the events are unlocked from the start of the game, so no need to play through the 30 Day Challenge (although, I think that kind of helps get you familiar with the program). Simply click on what you want to do and a nifty little bar at the bottom will tell you how effective your workout is. For example, I created a 10 minute demo for my mom that will only burn 50 calories by the end of the session. Very low impact and very short. You know, to gently usher her in.

In any event, the big chunk of meat of this product is the 30 Day Challenge. And the bulk of this series of blog entries.

On your first day, you are given a special video from EA SPORT Active's celebrity sponsor Bob Greene. You know, Oprah's personal trainer? He pretty much gives you some words of encouragement as you start your 30 Day Challenge and hopes you end up living a healthier lifestyle by the end of it all. You then pick the gender of your personal trainer, the intensity of your workout, and what kind of music you want playing in the background while you work out. Don't know why that is an option, but that's probably because I'm paying more attention to the trainer's audio than I am to the background music.

From there, Active takes care of the rest. You are given a 20 minute workout for that day with a goal to meet by the end of the session. Today's goal was to burn 96 calories. Today's session also included the Wii Balance Board, which was a nice first day introduction, if you ask me.

My session began with a warm up of walking, running, and then doing some squats. We then went on to doing some kick boxing and then some inline skating simulations, both of which used the Balance Board. From there we went on to doing some side lunges, bicep curls, and low rowing pulls. The last two on that list involved the supplied resistance band, which out of the package smells like dental floss. From there, we cycled back around to boxing and ended with a jog around the track.

When all was said and done, I actually burned more than what was projected for the session with two minutes to spare. The data was recorded on my Journal, which then was promptly filled with positive feedback about how impressive I performed.

I was then prompted to fill out the various lifestyle surveys in the journal in order to be rewarded a daily medal. These surveys appear to be nothing but a way to keep track of your personal habits like how much sleep you are getting or how many glasses of water you drink verse sodas. It also records and scores you on your outside activities such as walking the dog or the time you spent in yoga class. This was kind of surprise to me, as it gave me a reason to still use Wii Fit. And with the summer weather being as it is right now, getting 20 minutes of walking in won't be a problem until Fall rolls around. The only downside to these surveys is that it asks you about YESTERDAY's events. Who knew that having a good memory was part of being healthy?

According to whatever mystical math this product uses, I scored 88% on today. That score was high enough to get a Gold Medal and even more positive feedback added to my journal.

Tomorrow should be interesting. My trainer said we'll be doing lateral exercises as well as upping the exercises I apparently excelled at today.