So, this weekend I gained a pound thanks in part to a particularly foody trip down to Cupertino, and Wii Fit didn't even ask me why I gained weight, much less tell me to "eat less snacks." So that's good.
From the descriptions, it looks like the weighing part is largely an afterthought, so my own suggestion would be for some way to just turn that part of it off. Until they come out with Wii Eat or something like that, it's probably more useful to just join Weight Watchers or use a site like fitday.com.
Well, there is a very primitive calorie-counter in it, and also you don't HAVE to do the daily weighings, although that is the primary way it tracks your progress. But now it doesn't admonish you for failing to lose weight, and it does seem to actually provide constructive criticism instead, which is the main thing I hated about the original version.
It does still use the goddamn BMI, though, and there's no way to bypass the BMI display during the daily weighing.
Oh, one of the big changes in Plus over the original is that now there's tests for mental fitness and hand-eye coordination as well as basic balance tests. Some of those are pretty fun, too. It also makes much more interesting use of the wiimote than the original.
I lost a lot of weight (~50 lb) quite rapidly (six-and-a-half months) by using insane quantities of caffeine as an appetite suppressant and exercising furiously and not eating... not recommended; i did some very strange things.
It does sort of make sense that my weight's gone up, seeing as how I've significantly cut back on my caffeine intake. Hm.
Oh, incidentally, in "simple test" mode it never has an opportunity to criticize, so that's how I always use it. On the downside, it doesn't do the agility/mental tests, but those are always optional and I just do them for fun anyway (and now you can do those on their own, although without getting a Wii Fit Age as a result).
I'm interested by the idea of balance boards, i'm clumsy and uncoordinated and constantly banging my head on things didn't learn to ride a bike until i was like 14!
They're pretty silly. The agility ones are things like shifting your weight around to hit various targets, keeping your balance while standing on one leg, holding your balance within a progressively-tighter range, and walking in place (which is a lot harder to do well on than you'd expect).
The mental acuity tests are mostly things like solving simple math problems (with a strong memory component), avoiding moving obstacles while your playfield gets progressively more obscured, and balancing your hands and feet to different progressively-tighter ranges.
If you do them as part of the daily test (where it tells you to eat fewer snacks), it also tells you how youthful your mind and body are, "using your actual age and your performance on the tests" (i.e. completely made up). It also makes suggestions for what to focus on if you do particularly poorly on one of the tests.
Mental training seems like a neat idea but it's scuppered by our living in a time with such a poor understanding of how the mind actually works. Thinking differs so much from person to person!
(A big thing with me is the idea that we're still living in the pre-dawn of History, assuming civilization doesn't break and that we don't get eaten by a Singularity our knowledge of even the most basic stuff is so limited that in the relatively near future we'll be seen as an irrelevant footnote, if anything.)
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."
Attributed (doubtfully) to Socrates.
I love the idea that everything has always been believed to be getting worse, while in fact generally getting better.
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Transcript
Comments
It does still use the goddamn BMI, though, and there's no way to bypass the BMI display during the daily weighing.
Oh, one of the big changes in Plus over the original is that now there's tests for mental fitness and hand-eye coordination as well as basic balance tests. Some of those are pretty fun, too. It also makes much more interesting use of the wiimote than the original.
The skateboarding mode is also great fun.
Oh, incidentally, in "simple test" mode it never has an opportunity to criticize, so that's how I always use it. On the downside, it doesn't do the agility/mental tests, but those are always optional and I just do them for fun anyway (and now you can do those on their own, although without getting a Wii Fit Age as a result).
I'm interested by the idea of balance boards, i'm clumsy and uncoordinated and constantly banging my head on things
The mental acuity tests are mostly things like solving simple math problems (with a strong memory component), avoiding moving obstacles while your playfield gets progressively more obscured, and balancing your hands and feet to different progressively-tighter ranges.
If you do them as part of the daily test (where it tells you to eat fewer snacks), it also tells you how youthful your mind and body are, "using your actual age and your performance on the tests" (i.e. completely made up). It also makes suggestions for what to focus on if you do particularly poorly on one of the tests.
Mental training seems like a neat idea but it's scuppered by our living in a time with such a poor understanding of how the mind actually works. Thinking differs so much from person to person!
(A big thing with me is the idea that we're still living in the pre-dawn of History, assuming civilization doesn't break and that we don't get eaten by a Singularity our knowledge of even the most basic stuff is so limited that in the relatively near future we'll be seen as an irrelevant footnote, if anything.)
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."
Attributed (doubtfully) to Socrates.
I love the idea that everything has always been believed to be getting worse, while in fact generally getting better.