One of our fabulous mums on the Lose Baby Weight plan has reviewed the Wii Fit – see her full review below;
Product – Wii Fit
Category – Fitness equipment
Cost – approx $130
Web purchase – various
Lose Baby Weight rating – 3.5 stars out of 5
For some lucky few working off that excess baby weight after your dear boy or girl is born is a piece of cake while for the rest of us, we will struggle from diet to exercise, trying to find something that will shed those stubborn kilo’s. I’ve found the hardest part isn’t the actual exercise, it’s trying to find the time between everything going on to take 5 mins for myself!
Nintendo WiiFit or more recently WiiFit Plus, was touted as the pioneering effort to combine exercise and gaming into something that people actually enjoyed doing and that’s probably the best part. When I switch on the Wii to run through a quick session while my little girl is asleep, the tracking features built in show me my weight loss over time as well as my current fitness level. Seeing that each time makes me want to come back to it each day, like a constant positive reinforcement.
Starting off with the WiiFit was actually quite easy as it starts you on low impact and beginners level exercise which slowly increases the longer you do it. As you play it and get a few sessions under your belt, the difficultly is increased which in turn raises your fitness level and (hopefully!) starts to burn off those kilos.
But that there is the weakness in the WiiFit’s design. You do need to use it and quite regularly to see solid results and to encourage you to keep on keeping on. Don’t pack it away or let it get buried under the kid’s toys, make sure it’s somewhere easy to get to, otherwise it will just become another addition to the “too hard” basket.
Another suggestion is to try throwing in a walk or some other exercise outside (swimming is great in summer!) or even some work with weights which will only help to further your progress. This is because I found some of the exercises to not give me what I felt to be a good workout. Some of the exercises like Advanced Boxing took a lot out of me, but others really didn’t leave me like I’d had a proper workout.
Though the WiiFit wouldn’t be promoting fitness if it was all about aerobics and weight loss, included in the game is also strength, yoga and balance. These add extra activities to the game and in the case of Yoga, offers a more relaxing wind down while the Strength training attempts to work on your muscle though it is fairly limited compared to typical training with weights.
As with ANY exercise program, the WiiFit isn’t a magic pill to or weight loss secret – you need to ensure you are eating a healthy diet if you hope to see any results that you’d be happy with.
I’ve actually found my little girl loves to watch me work out on it and can really get into watching me run in place or punch the air, so don’t feel you HAVE to get your little ones down for a nap or out of the house to get a chance to jump on the Wii.
So to answer my question, yes the WiiFit can definitely help you lose your baby weight by making exercise fun and entertaining while giving you a way to track how you’re doing with your baby weight loss. You just have to make sure it’s always ready when you are!