Back when it was still a novelty, my family became the proud owners of a Wii. Pig and I clowned around playing a number of games on it. Horse played some games and proved she was much better at fake bowling than the adults in our household. Rooster could play a few things with some help, but she was mostly interested in just swinging the little plastic remote around to cause as much destruction as possible. Pig Jr. was only interested in watching the games, not actually participating. After getting whacked with some of Rooster's wide arm movements and sudden lunges, I can admit to feeling a bit relieved that I wouldn't be beaten up on two sides. Eventually, the novelty wore off a bit and there were days when the Wii sat idle.
Somewhere along the line, I had the somewhat delusional thought that if I had the Wii Fit disk and balance board, I could attempt to get in shape. More accurately, I could attempt to get into a shape that was not round. After hinting broadly, demanding not-so-subtly, and scouting for store locations that sold the desired equipment, I received the Wii Fit goodies as a gift. I had the decency to pretend to be surprised, but I doubt I fooled anyone. I was on my way to becoming fit!
For a while, I used the Wii Fit on a daily basis. I created my goals, took repeated body tests, and made sure I worked out for at least thirty minutes every day, as charted by the program and not my clock. I slowly watched my body mass index drop. At one point, I was down to below my goal weight, and I was a very, very happy camper. I changed my goals to maintaining my new figure, as opposed to lessening it. Then I got hit with the flu.
I was completely out of commission for a week when that flu hit. For an additional two weeks, I could barely walk anywhere, let alone exercise up to my previous standards. It was a long, slow stretch of time for me. Somewhere in that time period, I gave up even attempting to use the Wii Fit program. Then I forgot about it.
When I next attempted to use the Wii Fit, it was almost a year later. My weight was not much higher than it had been, but given that fat weighs less than muscle, I felt a lot worse than I had before. I attempted to re-start my daily regimen, then gave it up when the kidlets entered a six-month stretch of trading germs back and forth.
Before I knew it, I was an expert at coming up with reasons why I should not go back to the Wii Fit. Someone was sick. My heartburn was acting up. I had not painted my toenails, and who wants to do stretches where you are staring at nasty-looking feet? My back was sore. I was too tired. The kidlets were home for the summer and there was no way I would put on my spandex workout outfit in front of them. I had to bake cookies instead. (The irony of that last one was not lost on me.) There were too many errands to run. The Wii remotes needed to be charged. I had not slept all night and needed a nap instead. I was not drinking enough water and was afraid of dehydration. The kidlets were fighting and could not be trusted to not kill each other during my workout. One of the kidlets had a doctor's appointment miraculously scheduled during my workout time. We ran out of batteries to start up the balance board. Batteries "accidentally" never made the shopping list. Pig Jr. stopped taking an afternoon nap and he would dismantle his entire room if left unattended for me to exercise. I needed to make a phone call. Bills were due and needed to be paid. The closets needed a good cleaning. Need I go on?
Truth be told, the longer I dilly-dallied in getting myself back into shape, the easier the excuses flew off my tongue. I did have random times when I would suit myself up and drag out the balance board for a day or two. The Wii Fit pretended to not know who I was and my rotund Mii seemed to glare balefully at me from the television screen. Seriously, how did that silly avatar ever get so round? It could not possibly have anything to do with my lack of exercise and new found love of cookies!
Now that the house is on the market and I am spending a lot of time painting, packing, and cleaning, I have noticed that my weight has gone down a little bit. It's not much, but it is enough to make me start thinking about dusting off the Wii Fit and attempting to get back into a routine. The kidlets are all old enough now that they can do each little exercise segment next to me. Maybe it will even get them to work off some of that extra energy that drives me batty by four o'clock every afternoon. I am thinking this is a done deal. The Wii and I have a date to get me back in shape.
Tomorrow. Our date will have to be tomorrow. I think I put away my exercise clothing and need time to hunt it down and wash it first. Oh, but I had better line dry those spandex clothes or they might shrink to the perfect size for Horse's American Girl doll. I guess I will have to wait a few more days before I can start exercising again, but I will start once more. Really.
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