Houston, Wii have a problem

Just an update on my ongoing negative feelings toward the Wii Fit Plus little animated balance board dude.  So, I’ve been running, working out, and dutifully wearing my little Wii pedometer everywhere, every single day, so I can suck up to the Wii and get credit for wandering around the grocery store and walking the dogs.   “It looks like you’re only burning about 250 calories a day.”  There is never any kind of conversation like, “Hey, you’re doing great!  I see you’re making the effort to work out!”  None of that.

Instead, to meet my goal of losing two pounds in two weeks, the Wii dude said I needed to burn 500 calories a day, and I had no choice!  I had to hit “A” on the Wii Fit Plus tablet, or I couldn’t move on!  So I kept logging in and checking my calories, and I made it to 435 calories burned, and I was just done for the day.   Couldn’t do any more. Plus, I kept doing calorie-burning exercises instead of strength training and yoga, which I wanted to do.  There is no way to change this mandated calorie-burning setting, as far as I can tell.  Andy and I searched the internet and we found diddley squat.

As it happened, that same day, I weighed myself on the Wii board later in the morning than usual.  “You’ve gained 1.9 pounds.”  Then it forced me to a screen where I had to identify the reason for this weight gain.  The reasons it had available were winners like, “Late dinners.”  There was nothing I could click on that said, “I just ate breakfast!  I’m full of cereal!”

Again I got the “Just thought I’d mention it” snark that I usually weigh myself earlier (see my previous post).  There was no choice to click on that said, “My son was playing his Donkey Kong game on the Wii U and I couldn’t get on until now!”

Similarly, there is nothing to click on that says, “It’s my time of the month and I’m bloated up with water weight and my exercise pants barely fit but at least I’m here standing on your stupid scale and subjecting myself to your abuse so why don’t you just shut the hell up?”

After that, I did the two tests that the Dude came up with, “One for your body, one for your mind.”  I did okay with the balance one, then there was a new one that required me to blow into the Wii Fit Plus Tablet.  I didn’t even know where to blow, but Josh said into the microphone, so I did.  That put air into this virtual bubble.  Then the bubble started to drift to the left.  I kept blowing, and it hit a wall and burst.  Test over, with no instruction how to do it.  “Looks like lung capacity isn’t your strong point.  Do you get out of breath a lot?”   I really hate that guy.

I took yesterday off.  What a great day!  I had recently had a conversation with an anti-carb friend about eating fewer grains, and I had spent Saturday feeling guilty for my life, trying to determine which foods I could eat that would be Stone Age-appropriate.  This is a huge crock, by the way.  Those poor bastards were starving.  What do you think they’d have done if they had stumbled across a box of Cheerios?  Scarfed it down.  And the box!  They’d have eaten that, too!  Do you think they’d have sniffed at the carb load?    But I was AWOL — so we got Domino’s pizza.  I did get the thin crust, which was very good despite having fewer carbs, but I washed it down with a Coke!

I toasted the Wii Fit U, which was not on.

This post and all blog content Ⓒ Copyright Janet Farrar Worthington.