Wii fit is a pretty good motivator to exercise. It starts out by measuring your Body Mass Index and suggesting a weight loss goal, plus it sets a time frame for achieving the goal. It also motivates you through showing how much time you have spent exercising each session, and greeting you at the beginning of the workout. If you haven’t exercised for awhile then you can expect a small lecture, and if any of your friends haven’t logged in for awhile, then it asks you about them. For those who are a little overweight, the Mii that represents you will have a little pudge around the gut. It also assigns you points for how well you achieved different exercises and it is fun to compete with others in your system to get the highest scores.
I am pretty disciplined about regularly doing yoga and pilates DVDs, but don’t get enough cardiovascular exercise. What I have liked most about Wii Fit is that there are several categories of exercises (Yoga, Strength Training, Aerobics, and Balance). The Yoga is pretty basic, but the Strength Training offers some good variety to my normal workout. The Aerobics activities really do get your heart rate raised, so I feel that Wii Fit improves my regular workouts by adding some cardio. The Basic Jog is most impressive because it has really fun scenery and a status bar that shows your progress toward the finish line. Once a jogger beside me actually fell over, which was pretty amusing.
What’s really annoying about Wii Fit is the amount of time it takes to navigate from each individual exercise to the next. For example, you might do one small yoga exercise that takes about one or two minutes, but then it takes that same amount of time to switch to a new exercise. It’s really frustrating that you can’t set up a program for yourself that just flows from one exercise to the next. Sometimes when you do one exercise, then Wii Fit recommends a second exercise that is a good pair, but it doesn’t take you directly to the recommended exercise and instead you have to go back through the menu to find it. I would also like to know the estimated number of calories burned each workout, along with the existing monitor of the total you have exercised that day. Just one more idea for improvement- what if you were actually training for the Olympics and after sufficient competency at different exercises you could compete online with other Wii Fit users? That would really be cool and an even better motivator.