.. and it especially won't with that attitude.
Today, Michael from Dubuque posted the following link in his livejournal: The Great Experiment: Wii Fit. This is a weekly report by Eau Claire / No Brand Con legend Vinnk, in which every week he's been diligently using Wii Fit in an effort to lose weight and gain a better attitude towards exercise in general.
Looking at the results of this experiment, it worked amazing for him. ^_^. The Final Report is proof of that.
Hey, that's great that WiiFit can guide people to a better, more fit life, but it's not going to work for me, nor many many other people that think it will.
In the year 2000, I was a chunky dude. I'm not the fittest guy today, but back then I was far worse. Then one of my friends introduced me to Dance Dance Revolution. He had just gotten back from Japan and picked up DDR 3rd Mix new in stores. I didn't buy the dance pads or anything gay like that.. I played on the controller and got to know the songs. I liked it a lot.
DDR became one of my top favorite games and I continued to purchase the new ones as they came out. Then college rolled around.
I loved DDR, but I was a controller nut. I never touched the pads because I felt too silly and stupid. But like most major changes in my life, I met someone. Darlene was both a geek and a dancer and started the first DDR Night at UW-Platteville, that I whole-heartily supported. My feet had never touched the DDR pads, but using the controller was not an option for this night. So I hopped on the pads for my first time and sucked horribly.
Everyone else really wondered how I sucked so bad when I had been playing the game for two years already. The proof came at the end of the night when I picked up a controller and tapped away at it.
This was the beginning though... She and I kept the DDR Nights coming and I played/practiced the game at least 2 hours a day. I loved the music, the gameplay, and Darlene was the perfect partner to face off against and provided the perfect goal to reach towards.
As the months went on, the pounds shed off of me. Foods and Drinks such as Pizza and Mt. Dew just didn't sit well in my stomach anymore. It felt heavy and I couldn't consume such products anymore. I switched to a lighter meal and juices and such.
In a matter of half a year, I was nearly 45 lbs lighter. I was a rough 200 pounder when I first stepped on the pads, but by summer I had gotten so close to the 150 mark. When I returned to my summer job, my co-workers thought I was sick or contracted some sort of illness.. only DANCE FEVER!!
DDR Sunday Nights was one of the highlights of my week, along-side SPAMM and other college activities. But attendance did falter a bit and DDR, as a series, really began to stale. DDR kept continuing to climb in popularity but after DDR Extreme Japan was out there was a massive drought. DDR Extreme USA sucked balls, and subsequent releases were no where near the callibur of Extreme Japan.
Darlene graduated in May 2004 and the Nights were difficult to get going with myself alone. The Nights were revived along-side the ACM Thursday Night LAN parties, but that was the only time I played anymore. And even some nights I didn't even play.. I just brought it with.
I was still eating right and walking everywhere and with my busy busy schedule, I had a huge amount of energy and DDR really helped me power through the last 2 years of college with gusto. However, the only time I really got back into DDR was in Japan with DDR Supernova.
Overall, DDR helped shaped my perspective of an active lifestyle. I felt fit and had a ton of energy throughout my day. I was eating better, too. However, the pounds came back after I started working at Widen and had nothing to do with my time other than play games, watch movies and sit on my ass all day and work. I don't really need a hell of a lot of energy because I'm not doing anything that needs it. So, at the end of last year, I had pretty much returned to my pre-DDR weight.
Smashing my car actually helped a lot though, because now I'm forced to walk everywhere and somedays I walk rather far distances. I usually make a bunch of phone calls while walking, so I'm never bored. I'm down 15 to 20 on average and feel quite great.
Japan was a huge pyschology impact on "walking" for me because I know how much distance I'm capable of traveling. Walking all the way from my office to the Capital of madison doesn't bother me at all.. That's like a drunken walk home from the bars in Sumiyoshi to me. 3 miles? pfft.. I've done that nearly passing out before.
I think it's great that Vinnk has had a similar video game exercise experience, but there's no way it'll captivate me the way DDR did. DDR's music was what interested me the most, not the weight-loss. WiiFit is all weight-loss in a very stoic comparative fashion.
Brain Age was done in the EXACT same way. I actually stuck with Brain Age 1 for longer than I bet most people did. Almost a whole 2 months, actually. I had an entry for every single day.. but it eventually died for me. The same stupid mini-games every single day can wear very very fast. The bite-sized 30 second tests are the real killer and that's all WiiFit is.