Last Christmas I received the video game Wii Fit.  It wasn’t a hint; I wanted the game.  I enjoy doing yoga but long ago grew bored of yoga DVDs and since first trying a live class many years ago I wasn’t keen on going back to a class in real life, with like… real people.  *shudder*

So Wii Fit seemed like a good solution.  I could do yoga in the privacy of my own home, at my own pace with a virtual personal trainer.  At first I really liked the game.  It has a few features that are pretty cool, which mostly boil down to the balance board: a tablet one stands on that measures one’s weight and balance.

Besides yoga the game also has strength exercises and some light cardio and balance games.  The problem is that all these activities get old fast.  I conquered the yoga in no time and most of the strength exercises as well.  Some of them remain too difficult for me; I’m sorry but I will never be able to do a proper push-up.  It’s just not happening.  I’m sure I could pull it off with enough training but it’s not a priority in my life.  Opening windows however, is – I was once mocked by an obese person for being unable to pry open a window – but I long ago came to terms with my lack of upper body strength. Other strength exercises in Wii Fit I would argue are not so much about strength as they are about balance, since the balance board is the gimmick of the game and damn it, they’re gonna exploit that!

The cardio is fine, but again pretty much too easy.  And the balance games are like traditional video games except you use your feet instead of your hands (as in you shift your weight on the board to make things happen).  And since I generally find vid games to be rather boring, this aspect of Wii Fit does not intrigue me.

As a video game Wii Fit is fun but as an exercise program I find it lacking.  I think it would be effective for really lazy, out of shape people who need an easy, fun way to get introduced to exercise but it’s not much of a workout for someone serious about fitness.  Not that I’m serious about fitness, mind you.  So for me it was pretty much ideal.  I even managed to lose a little weight using it.  But then I got bored and I felt I wasn’t really being challenged. 

Enter EA Sports Active.  I saw an ad for it on TV and was intrigued.  Being in a very game friendly home, I obtained the game two days later by merely mentioning it to he who brings in the games. 

Active is much more of a workout than Wii Fit.  There are three settings: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced and it didn’t take long for me to move up to Advanced.  Again, it’s probably not as intense a workout as the real deal in a gym or whatever but for my purposes it is ideal and is actually challenging while remaining fun.  Wii Fit comes with barbells if you buy the mondo pack (as well as a yoga mat and a towel and a stinky plastic bottle) but Active comes with an elastic band to use in resistance exercises.  The band is superiour to the barbells because you can adjust it as need be.  ‘Course it hurts when the thing snaps in half and whips you after a month of being stretched to oblivion.

Now that I really think about it, the activities in Active aren’t really that much more diverse than in Wii Fit, in fact Wii Fit definitely offers more options but they’re all kiddy options.  Active’s exercises are more “western” than Wii Fit’s, meaning they aren’t about zen and calm and shit, they are about getting your heart pumping and sweating your ass off.  As with Wii Fit, there is a virtual personal trainer who encourages you, and as in Wii Fit, you can choose a man or a woman, but unlike in Wii Fit, where they are both lily white (literally, there are only like 3 colours in the game) in Active you can train with a person of colour, and he looks a little bit like Obama in his virtual form, so there’s that.  Plus the trainer in Active is just cooler.  He’s more encouraging.  (I use the male trainer so I can pretend I’m cruising a hot guy in the gym).

One of the really weird and off-putting things about Wii Fit is that the balance board is kind of a jerk.  It is anthropomorphized and talks to you before your workout.  I’ve already joked about it in Paradise Syndrome and I swear, this is barely an exaggeration.  The freaking board is totally passive aggressive and makes snarky comments instead of encouraging you to keep working out.  I’m like, seriously?  You’re gonna give me shit for gaining 1 lbs?  In Active even if you screw up an activity the trainer encourages you to try harder instead of telling you you’re a fucking loser who needs to stop eating donuts. 

Active uses positive reinforcement and cautions you not to work too hard, whereas Wii Fit makes you feel guilty if you skip a day.  And Active is just prettier.  There are more colours and it’s more dynamic looking, although YMMV, ‘cause some might enjoy the cuteness of working out with a mii.  Admittedly, Active doesn’t offer a bevy of options for customizing your avatar, but it gives a hell of a lot more choices than Wii Fit does. 

In the end, the results speak for themselves.  Before obtaining these games I was already doing light workouts and being a generally active person in the sense that I don’t own a car and do a lot of walking.  My goal was not to lose weight but to simply remain active and healthy.  I went in with a healthy weight and BMI for someone of my age, sex, height, and frame (which admittedly is probably mostly due to genetics – everyone in my family is naturally thin).  With Wii Fit I maintained this BMI.  With Active, I lowered it.  In 6 months of Wii Fitting, my weight fluctuated a bit but I think this was due to other factors (stress, my diet).  In one month of Activeing I lost about 5 lbs and about an inch on all my measurements.  Another month later and I’ve shed a few more lbs.  It was never my goal to lose weight, in fact, having to buy new clothes is not something I wanted to do, but it is sort of fun to have the problems of an entitled, privileged, middle-class white woman. 

I’ve never cared about the numbers on the scale but what I do care about is feeling good and strong.  As previously mentioned, I can’t even do one freaking push-up.  And I still can’t.  But I can do a lot more girly push-ups now than I used to!  Thanks to EA Sports Active I feel physically stronger and more energetic and my endurance has improved.  At first when I would run I’d get so tired that I’d have to chant a Vulcan prayer to force myself to power through but now no chanting is required.  Only human sacrifice.

At 33-years-old I feel better than I ever have in my life.  I actually have muscles now!  Well, ok, I don’t think anyone else in the world would be able to tell they’ve grown just by looking at me, but I can tell the difference.  I swear I can feel my calves now.  Dude, I totally have triceps!  My abs have always been decently strong thanks to the exercise inherent in laughing out loud (at the expense of others) and they are still cushioned by a comforting layer of flub, but there is now just a little less jelly in my belly.  Now when people poke me in the gut, I don’t giggle like the Pillsbury doughboy, I get their number.

As I said, it was never my intention to lose weight, so I didn’t have the forethought to take a “before” picture when I went into this so posting an “after” pic would be meaningless.  And again, I don’t think anyone would really notice the difference but I know that I’m fitter now than ever and thinner than I have been since high school.  Which actually… maybe not so good.  I hate that anorexic look where you can see a person’s ribs sticking out of their chest and if I lose any more weight I’ll be there.  ‘Cause I lose my weight in my upper body, while my lower body keeps carrying around a protective layer of whale blubber.  (Clearly I am made to bear children.  Too bad I hate kids.  They’re just like people only poopier.)

The only thing I don’t like about Active is that even though it gives you the option of integrating the balance board in your workouts you can’t use it as a scale and therefore can’t track your progress the same way you can with Wii Fit.  Actually, this is probably a good thing because it doesn’t encourage you to get obsessed with numbers.   In Wii Fit the weight tracking combined with the balance board’s attitude problem could be devastating for anyone with low self-esteem.  I can totally see a teenaged girl getting really upset when she gains a pound and the board tells her she’s an obese puppy killer.  But for me and my healthy body image (born of a combination of arrogance and indifference) it’s fun for the sake of interest to see what effect the workouts are having on my weight.

Active is also superiour in its lifestyle component.  It doesn’t tell you what to eat but it does quiz you on your diet and lifestyle, thus encouraging you to do well in those areas as well.  In fact, I’ve found Active to be so encouraging that I have actually started eating better.  Again, my starting point was pretty decent.  I’m not gourmet or gourmand so food has never been a big problem for me and I genuinely love vegetables but I have been known to indulge in the occasional poutine.  But lately I’m finding myself less interested in junk food simply because I feel so good physically.  It really is all related.  You will eat like shit if you feel like shit and you’ll feel like shit if you eat like shit.  And similarly, feeling good leads to eating well leads to feeling good.  Huzzah!  Yay for the human body!

As it stands I’m using both games in conjunction.  I mostly use Active for working out but when I have more time I might double up on exercises and also do some Wii Fit for the relaxing benefits of yoga.  I use Wii Fit to track my weight and use Active to keep abreast of what I am eating and how much I’m sleeping and so on. (Which, total digression, isn’t much.  I haven’t suffered from insomnia since high school but now I’m back in it.  Stress is a bitch best served divorce papers.)

My conclusion:  Active isn’t perfect but it’s better than Wii Fit.  It helps to be self-motivated, but if you can get off your ass with the power of your own will then Active is probably nearly as effective as a gym membership where you can never use the machines.  Plus it’s cheaper.  I imagine you could get better results if you hired a real personal trainer and did hardcore weightlifting and stuff but if you’re just trying to stay minimally active then these games are a good way to go.  If you can afford it I would suggest buying both games but if you can only get one then definitely go for Active.  Or you know, just go outside and go jogging or something, like a chump from the olden days.

[rating:20] 2 niqueheads for Wii Fit

[rating:30] 3 niqueheads for Active

[rating:40] 4 for both games combined.

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