My Fat Ass
I weighed 185 pounds this morning, which is 53 pounds more than I’m gonna weigh on Monday, December 7, 2009.
I’d lovvvve to say that something sensible like the inevitability of diabetes, high blood pressure, and/or hypertension spurred me into a fitness crusade… but that’s not what happened. Here’s what happened. Or rather, what didn’t happen:
I didn’t go to my high school reunion. I didn’t meetup with a dear college friend when he was in town. I didn’t go because the last time those people saw me was 10 years and 53 pounds ago.
Yes, I would rather miss out on seeing old friends than have those who knew Thin Me see me as I am now: Me + 53 pounds of Portable Personal Comfort Zone.
I could give a shit about an unhealthy life or an early, painful death. It’s my pride and my vanity FTW, baby! Woohoo!
So I tried Curves and then some other gym. They worked but: Required social skills + Were not fun = Unsustainable. Pounds came off, pounds came back on.
Then my Mom gifted us a Wii for Christmas and I discovered Wii Fit. Interactive on-screen exercise in my living room? Like Sharon Stone practicing tennis in Total Recall? Seriously?
I ordered it. It arrived. We plugged it in. Made just for geeky me, it was. Yes indeedy.
My Wii Fit
Let’s be clear on how much we love our Wii. We have given away almost all our living room furniture to make space to play. What’s left is our couch and an ottoman. No chairs, no sofa table, no end tables, no lamp, no rug.
A couch. An ottoman.
And plenty of bare floor space to fling my fat ass around for Step Aerobics, Rhythm Boxing, Yoga, Tennis, Bowling, Golf, and ski-type winter sports thingies I’ll never do in real life because I don’t like heights, speed, or cold.
Anyway, the Wii Fit is perfect for me. I can play anytime I want alone in my own space. I play nearly every day and the pounds have been coming off. Slowly.
Because here’s the (obvious) thing: some games are a better workout than others.
Step Aerobics and Rhythm Boxing were born to burn calories, so no surprises there. Wii Sports Tennis is a lame workout. Wii Fit Yoga is not. You wouldn’t (or at least I didn’t) guess this from how it feels to play Tennis compared to how it feels to do Yoga.
Tennis is much sliding around, mad arm swinging, and talking trash to the TV screen as if the little Mii people can hear me.
Wii Fit Yoga is all calm breathing, steady balance, and these gently strenuous stretches from hell that unearth muscles I’ve never, ever used before. Ever.
My average heart rate after 15 minutes of Wii Sport Tennis: 100.
My average heart rate after 15 minutes of Wii Fit Yoga: 124.
Those 24 heartbeats are the difference between light/moderate exercise and moderate/high exercise, so says my heart monitor. A vast difference.
I want to weigh 132 pounds 9 months from now. I don’t have time for light/moderate exercise at the core of my play. Exercise math probably doesn’t work like regular math, but I’m going to pretend that it does:
If I went with what I feel is effortful instead of what my heart monitor detects is effortful, I’d lose weight 24% slower. Or need to play 24% longer to get the same result.
Good thing I measure more than the time I spend playing, eh?
Measuring What Matters
Which is all to say this: Measure what really matters.
To lose my fat ass by the end of the year, I can’t only measure how much time I spend in play…I also need to measure the intensity of my play. An hour of Wii play each day might get me thin eventually, but an hour of moderate/high impact Wii play each day will make my deadline.
If you’re like the technical support desk I used to work for, stop rating your staff on only one factor, like how many calls they handle per month. It’s dumb to measure effectiveness by a single factor that treacherous, lazy assholes can easily manipulate for ill. You have acres of other factors that you ignore…combine measurables to suss out who’s really working well.
And if your website is your window, visitor count might not be your best measurement. You may learn more about your website (and your visitors) by looking at how long they stay, on which pages they linger most often, and which page they bounce off of like its a friggin’ trampoline.
Don’t measure by what you feel.
Don’t measure by what everyone else is measuring by just because everyone else is.
Don’t measure just what’s easiest to measure.
Don’t measure just one thing.
Measure the right things. Measure them often.
(and if you’re not sure what the right things are yet, just pick a few and see what you get. It’s better to measure anything—maybe even everything—than to measure nothing, k?)
