January 2, 2010

Day Two
Minutes: 28
Calories: 86

For some reason I weigh 2 pounds more than yesterday. I'm not sure I should do the Body Test every day. I guess I'll try it for a week out of curiosity. Usually with Weight Watchers, I only step on the scale at a WW meeting once a week. I wear the same thing to the meetings and do the same morning routine before weighing in. I'll have to build a Wii routine too.

I raised the tv. I find that I prefer it to be at eye height, so I'm going to have to do a more permanent solution. The current stand is a piece of modular office furniture from IKEA, so all I need to do is get an additional level for it. Portland here I come! Maybe next weekend. My back hurts less with it raised.

This time the Body Test included a memory game. I did okay, but it gets a little frustrating when the rules aren't spelled out immediately. Perhaps that's good though - flunking something once might be a healthy thing. I'm hoping it shows up again tomorrow so I get another shot at figuring it out and acing it.

I did all the same Balance exercises as yesterday: Soccer Heading, Ski Slalom, Ski Jump and Table Tilt.

I still suck at Soccer Heading. I think it'll take me awhile to get past that instinctual reaction to getting hit in the face. Yeah, that's the reason... Actually, I think I don't have that hot of a reaction time. I find myself moving left and right after the ball. I'm not fast enough to shift. I wonder how long until I get it down?

Ski Slalom, Ski Jump and Table Tilt all make sense to me. I know what I have to do. Each is challenging in its own way.

With Ski Slalom, I'm getting better at moving left and right which is strange because I can't seem to do it correctly on the Soccer Heading game. But I can make it through the sets of flags alright. Now the trick is to be able to accelerate and decelerate (leaning forward or backwards) at the right time and improve my timing.

Ski Jump has the very helpful dot to get me started plus the visual cue of when to extend (stand up). I'm amazed that it is just a few seconds of keeping still - totally still - but yet I waver so much! I'm very curious now about posture and balance and smoothness of motion. The secret is in these games.

I'm very fond of Table Tilt, having had a wooden table game with the same concept. I can't seem to get past level 5. But I'm getting close. There are three balls on an S or 5 shaped table. It's a struggle to get one ball in with out losing one or both of the others off the edge. I'm not sure if I have to sacrifice a ball to get it to reset and try again. Perhaps this one tests my ability to both go slow and go fast (make a quick shift in balance) to either smoothly, slowly move the ball or give it a nudge. I'm curious about this one too. Do the other balls positions influence the speed of the third ball? Is there a tilt or gravity to the table that I haven't figured out yet? I also find myself holding my breath on this game and almost gripping the balance board with my big toes. I can't wait to figure Level 5 out!

With all the above games, I made sure to do 5 sets of each. This was tricky because the Wii remembers previous players, and the scoring is additive. If I score a 40 multiple times, it only shows that I've achieve the score of 40 - not the number of times I got it. That's okay. I grabbed five rocks and put them next to the balance board. I use them to help keep track of my sets. I guess it's another form of Memory Test. You'd think I could remember how many times I do something! But I'll cut myself some slack - I'm really focused on figuring this out and what the heck is going on with my body.

Wii in the News:
I found this article off the BBC site on French retirees using the Wii
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8437444.stm

My Weight Watchers weigh-in is tomorrow. I'm looking forward to going!
Amy