Wii Fit: Meaningful Statistics?

I recently started manually tracking and reporting here the two stats Wii Fit 'tests' on. BMI and Wii Fit Age. I like numbers and looking at trends and such but the question that needs to be asked is do these stats matter? What do they track and do I even care?

BMI is a measurement comparing weight to height. That is all. It doesn't care if the weight is coming from muscles or from stomach fat. I'm sure there's a point when you've got enough body fat that working out properly will lower your BMI but for me I'm pretty sure if I actually exercised enough the number would actually go up, not down. Playing DDR for 30 minutes to an hour 5 nights a week is starting to impact my leg muscles (at the very least they ache a lot) but it isn't touching the BMI and really I don't think it will. That's just going to build muscle mass. If I actually wanted to lose weight I'd need to look at what I'm eating, likely starting with the 2 cans of Coke I drink a day at work. I may well start doing that but until then tracking my BMI is just wasting the 10 minutes a day it's taking to get the Wii Fit set up and running.

Wii Fit Age, on the other hand, is absolutely worthless. I did some searching to try to find what exactly it measures but it seems Nintendo doesn't care to fill anyone in on the specifics. The claim is it takes into account real age, BMI, and the 2 'balance tests' it puts you through. Now, there are 5 different ones (blue box breaking, slider area targeting, standing on one foot, standing on two feet, and walking in place) and you get 2 seemingly at random each day. There's no way that I can find to actually practice most of them. So Wii Fit Age changes so much day to day because I'm very good at some of the tests and not so good at others. I don't even understand what the walking in place one wants me to do. I'm bad at it, and I simply don't know how to get better. Am I actually bad at walking normally and is this something I need to fix or I'll screw my back in the future? Or is it just that my simulation of walking by walking in place is bad? I don't know and I have no way of getting the machine to tell me. The slider test I do very well at because I cheat. There are patterns to the locations of the target zones so if I get lucky I can actually be set in the right spot before it even shows it to me allowing me to breeze through the time. Does that mean I deserve to be 'younger'?

In my search for a definition of Wii Fit Age I turned up a bunch of articles claiming that Wii Fit isn't even very good for you. With all the annoying pauses dealing with stupid menus and the lack of movement in most of the tests it actually burns barely twice as many calories as just playing a standard game like Final Fantasy II. It's substantially worse than Wii Sports or DDR. So, I think that experiment is over. I'm going to keep playing DDR and I may look into tracking what I eat to see what's up there but the Wii Fit is getting retired for now.

Let's D-D-R!

There are two problems with Wii Fit. It's boring and you have long delays between different events as you navigate all the menus. The mini games are neat the first few times but get tiresome fast. Even now after a year break I just can't get into it. But I do want to build up some sort of stamina so I can consider some sort of physical activity in the future. I'm thinking maybe an exercise bike or something of that sort so I can watch Star Trek while building endurance. But for now... Dance Dance Revolution!

I plugged my pad back in after at least a year off there, too. I hit random and forgot that I wouldn't get to change the difficulty setting after the song was chosen. (In the arcade you get to see the song first since the difficulty varies drastically song to song even at the same setting.) I was on the 3rd difficulty setting and actually ended up perfecting it. My first AA result in the game and it came after more than a year off. It turned out the song was only a 5 difficulty (out of 10) but still, pretty sweet. And then two songs later I couldn't stand anymore I was so exhausted. Endurance definitely needs work. And to think, I don't have anyone to hit me with a sword...

BMI: 21.68 (-.41)

Wii Fit Age: 27 (+1)

Wii Fat

I don't remember where I saw it, but the other day I read an internet post connecting bad posture with shyness and not in the direction that seems to make sense on the surface. Their claim was having bad posture made people shy. I can't find where I saw it but they didn't have anything backing that claim. However, after a bit of reading I found one site that claimed good posture provides better blood flow which makes people feel healthier which I guess could help. I suspect it's more a vicious feedback loop where being shy causes bad posture which makes you feel worse which makes you shy. Or something.

Regardless, I've been meaning to get back on the Wii Fit bandwagon and get into something resembling shape. Having a stronger core should help with posture too, so might as well get started, right?

I scrounged up some batteries and  set up the Wii balance board. It turns out it had been 377 days since I last 'played' Wii Fit. I did the body test and it turns out I've gained almost 9 pounds in that time and am up over 145 pounds with a BMI over 22. At points in my life I was definitely on the 'too skinny' side of things but that's really not the case anymore.

I then tried to do some of the strength exercises but the 'charged' batteries I put into the balance board died after about 5 minutes total. I'm going to have to find some new batteries so I can get at it tomorrow. I figure if I make a habit of ending my posts here with Wii Fit data I'll be more apt to keep at it this time around so we'll see if that works out or not.