A while ago I wrote a post about how I'd become fat over the winter. Yeah . . . don't know how it happened or when, exactly, but I do know that I woke up one morning and I was fat. Well, because of that, I've been trying to watch what I've been eating for the past few weeks. I've been trying to exercise a little more and I've basically been trying to get a little more fit.
And then, the other day, the UPS man brought us a special package. It was something we'd ordered a few weeks ago--a present Tami had actually requested for Mother's Day. And finally a couple Wednesday's ago, it arrived.
What it was was this: our very own Wii Fit. Ok, maybe that needs a quick explanation. Now, I'm sure most of you out there know what a Wii is (and if you don't have one, just a quick (blatant) plug for RepcoLite: We're going to be giving away 5 of them this summer. The contest starts on June 16 and I'll have instructions on the website (www.repcolite.com) very soon). Anyway, as I was saying, I'm sure most of you know what a Wii is. And now, Nintendo, trying to capitalize on their already monstrous success, has released a new "exercise game" called Wii Fit.
It's a game that comes packaged with a big balance board that you put on the floor and stand on. The board registers your center of balance and incorporates those readings with different exercises and yoga poses you can do that are contained in the game. The basic idea behind it is that by making exercise fun, people like me will be more likely to do it.
Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, Tami has been wanting this thing ever since she first heard about it several months ago--she's into that weight-loss, exercise kick and she thought it'd be fun. So, being ever the attentive and thoughtful husband, I ordered it for her for Mother's Day. (Of course, though, being a guy, I was more than just a little nervous to buy an exercise present for Tami. Buying something that says, "Honey, I love you, but you're fat. Please exercise" is a little daunting. I've been in trouble before when the "Do you think I'm fat?" question's come up and as a result, I was kind of scared to buy Tami exercise equipment--even if it was in the form of a video game--for Mother's Day. But she wanted it and promised not to yell and cry and lock herself in the bathroom and say that she's just a fat blob (or to say that I said she was a fat blob--which I never have and never will) when it came in the mail. She convinced me she was telling the truth. So we ordered it).
And it arrived last week Wednesday, as I've said, and we were all giddy to open it up and try it out. As I ripped open the box and smelled that wonderful new electronics smell, I thought about how odd this was. Here I was, excited about exercise. I've never been excited about exercise before, (unless you count walking to the kitchen to get more food), but if you roll it into some kind of video game . . . well, you never know.
Anyway, we got it out of the box and read the instructions. We were supposed to, after the whole things was initialized--we were supposed to stand on it and set up a saved profile of ourselves. This profile would contain our starting weight--our starting body mass index--basically, how fat we are--as well as our goals for the next couple of weeks. When I told Tami all of that and told her to step onto the measuring board and start enjoying her Mother's Day present in front of all of us, she got a little nervous. She wanted to see how it all worked first, so she had me go before her.
That was fine by me--at first. See, I stepped onto the little balance board on the floor--the scale if you will, and suddenly a little computer voice on the television said "Ohhhhh." The voice sounded startled and slightly in pain or maybe just awestruck. Either way, the little "oh" didn't sound terribly flattering and I started to get a little nervous that maybe my three weeks of exercise and eating better hadn't trimmed me down to the lean form I imagined I was.
After that initial "oh," a few more tests followed. I had to tell the computer my height and my age and then I had to stand still while it told me it was measuring me. When it was done, there was a drum roll and then the television loudly proclaimed to everybody in the house that I was . . . OVERWEIGHT. And then, as if that wasn't bad enough, it showed a little computer person--something that on the Nintendo system is called a mii--a computer representation of me. It's a little guy I've made who looks kind of like me and who I've named Danny Boy. Anyway, as if it weren't bad enough to hear that I'm overweight, suddenly poor Danny Boy--my lean and trim self on the screen--suddenly Danny Boy pudged out. Just like me this winter. One second he was trim and fit and smiling and the next he was pudgy and doughy and lumpy and standing with his head down. A big colorful scale to his left showed that I was deep in the orange--the overweight section--and was only a few clicks from the dreaded red section that was simply and morbidly titled "obese." I believe there's just one category above that one and it's black and labeled "deceased." I'm a click away from obese and just a skip and a jump away from a pine box.
Well, when my character on tv got fat, the kids started laughing and hooting and hollering. When we saw that I was just a few clicks under obese, Tami started laughing. When I saw I was approaching the "deceased" category, I felt a little better. At least I wouldn't struggle and be fat for long. Death would take care of that.
Oh, the family though, they didn't care about my impending death--they were all having a great time making fun of fat Danny Boy and laughing when the little nag on the Wii Fit game started trying to tell me all about proper eating habits and healthy snack habits.
I stood there on the scale, letting the television berate me and letting my familiy laugh at me. I didn't yell at them to stop. I didn't act indignant and hop off the Wii Board and threaten never to go back on. Nope. I was an adult--a class act. And the reason I carried myself so well was because I was remembering something Tami had forgotton: she still had to go.
With that warm little thought in my head, I endured the humiliation and the pain and did my first little set of prescribed exercises before finally clocking out. By the time I was done, I'd spent a good 45 minutes doing different yoga poses, running in place, doing push-ups and rowing squats (which is a very awkward pose) and all kinds of other stuff. I was sweating, my legs were sore--almost numb--and I had pain everywhere. It was great. I don't know if this whole thing will really work, but it was fun and I felt like I'd done real exercise. We'll see how it pans out.
Anyway, when I was done, I jiggled my fat self off the little board and made room for Tami. Nervously, she stepped on and, to my delight, the same little agonized computer voice groaned "oh." It ran her through the same battery of tests and then came the big drum-roll. We waited. I was ready to cheer when I learned that Tami was overweight and Tami was getting ready to cry. (And I've got to confess, I didn't care. I hoped that little computer nag let her have it--they had ridden me so hard, I figured it'd be fair). Then the results came and it was a gigantic kick in my flabby, jiggly stomach: Tami was informed that she's in the normal range. Her little Mii jumped up and down and held her arms over her head before rushing off to stand on the screen next to my dumpy, pudgy little character. Danny Boy just stood there looking doughy (and sweaty) and Tami's Mii kept hopping around, looking like she'd just won the world series. This started everybody laughing again.
The real me just watched for a second and then I scuffled off to the bathroom and locked myself in with a box of ice cream sandwiches, a 2-liter of Diet Coke and a handful of granola bars. Of course, any sobs that leaked out of my throat were drowned out by the laughter from the living room. "A couple clicks away from deceased and they're still laughing." I munched on my snacks and chewed quickly (mainly because the computer nag had told me to chew slowly) before taking a big gulp of Diet Coke straight from the 2-liter. "Yeah, we'll see who's laughing when I'm dead." A smile started to creep up the corners of my face and I was just nodding my head when I realized that I was talking about my own death. I paused for a second before finishing off 2 more ice cream sandwiches and I started making notes on the back of the ice-cream sandwich box. Notes about my funeral. I'm choosing Pall Bearers. Tami's going to be one. So is Caleb--he laughed so hard at me he wet himself. And I'm going to request, in my will, that the Pall Bearers walk my sarcophagus (can you call the coffin of a really, really fat guy just a coffin? It doesn't seem . . . massive enough). Anyway, I'm going to request that my sarcophagus be hauled around the cemetery--like a lap. Maybe I'll request two laps of the cemetery.
I smiled as I munched down my last granola bar without even taking it out of the wrapper. I could hear them in the living room . . . exercising with their little Wii Fit . . . and I nodded to myself. "Keep exercising Tam. Keep exercising children. You're going to need to be pretty fit when I go . . . pretty fit, indeed."
And then, the other day, the UPS man brought us a special package. It was something we'd ordered a few weeks ago--a present Tami had actually requested for Mother's Day. And finally a couple Wednesday's ago, it arrived.
What it was was this: our very own Wii Fit. Ok, maybe that needs a quick explanation. Now, I'm sure most of you out there know what a Wii is (and if you don't have one, just a quick (blatant) plug for RepcoLite: We're going to be giving away 5 of them this summer. The contest starts on June 16 and I'll have instructions on the website (www.repcolite.com) very soon). Anyway, as I was saying, I'm sure most of you know what a Wii is. And now, Nintendo, trying to capitalize on their already monstrous success, has released a new "exercise game" called Wii Fit.
It's a game that comes packaged with a big balance board that you put on the floor and stand on. The board registers your center of balance and incorporates those readings with different exercises and yoga poses you can do that are contained in the game. The basic idea behind it is that by making exercise fun, people like me will be more likely to do it.
Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, Tami has been wanting this thing ever since she first heard about it several months ago--she's into that weight-loss, exercise kick and she thought it'd be fun. So, being ever the attentive and thoughtful husband, I ordered it for her for Mother's Day. (Of course, though, being a guy, I was more than just a little nervous to buy an exercise present for Tami. Buying something that says, "Honey, I love you, but you're fat. Please exercise" is a little daunting. I've been in trouble before when the "Do you think I'm fat?" question's come up and as a result, I was kind of scared to buy Tami exercise equipment--even if it was in the form of a video game--for Mother's Day. But she wanted it and promised not to yell and cry and lock herself in the bathroom and say that she's just a fat blob (or to say that I said she was a fat blob--which I never have and never will) when it came in the mail. She convinced me she was telling the truth. So we ordered it).
And it arrived last week Wednesday, as I've said, and we were all giddy to open it up and try it out. As I ripped open the box and smelled that wonderful new electronics smell, I thought about how odd this was. Here I was, excited about exercise. I've never been excited about exercise before, (unless you count walking to the kitchen to get more food), but if you roll it into some kind of video game . . . well, you never know.
Anyway, we got it out of the box and read the instructions. We were supposed to, after the whole things was initialized--we were supposed to stand on it and set up a saved profile of ourselves. This profile would contain our starting weight--our starting body mass index--basically, how fat we are--as well as our goals for the next couple of weeks. When I told Tami all of that and told her to step onto the measuring board and start enjoying her Mother's Day present in front of all of us, she got a little nervous. She wanted to see how it all worked first, so she had me go before her.
That was fine by me--at first. See, I stepped onto the little balance board on the floor--the scale if you will, and suddenly a little computer voice on the television said "Ohhhhh." The voice sounded startled and slightly in pain or maybe just awestruck. Either way, the little "oh" didn't sound terribly flattering and I started to get a little nervous that maybe my three weeks of exercise and eating better hadn't trimmed me down to the lean form I imagined I was.
After that initial "oh," a few more tests followed. I had to tell the computer my height and my age and then I had to stand still while it told me it was measuring me. When it was done, there was a drum roll and then the television loudly proclaimed to everybody in the house that I was . . . OVERWEIGHT. And then, as if that wasn't bad enough, it showed a little computer person--something that on the Nintendo system is called a mii--a computer representation of me. It's a little guy I've made who looks kind of like me and who I've named Danny Boy. Anyway, as if it weren't bad enough to hear that I'm overweight, suddenly poor Danny Boy--my lean and trim self on the screen--suddenly Danny Boy pudged out. Just like me this winter. One second he was trim and fit and smiling and the next he was pudgy and doughy and lumpy and standing with his head down. A big colorful scale to his left showed that I was deep in the orange--the overweight section--and was only a few clicks from the dreaded red section that was simply and morbidly titled "obese." I believe there's just one category above that one and it's black and labeled "deceased." I'm a click away from obese and just a skip and a jump away from a pine box.
Well, when my character on tv got fat, the kids started laughing and hooting and hollering. When we saw that I was just a few clicks under obese, Tami started laughing. When I saw I was approaching the "deceased" category, I felt a little better. At least I wouldn't struggle and be fat for long. Death would take care of that.
Oh, the family though, they didn't care about my impending death--they were all having a great time making fun of fat Danny Boy and laughing when the little nag on the Wii Fit game started trying to tell me all about proper eating habits and healthy snack habits.
I stood there on the scale, letting the television berate me and letting my familiy laugh at me. I didn't yell at them to stop. I didn't act indignant and hop off the Wii Board and threaten never to go back on. Nope. I was an adult--a class act. And the reason I carried myself so well was because I was remembering something Tami had forgotton: she still had to go.
With that warm little thought in my head, I endured the humiliation and the pain and did my first little set of prescribed exercises before finally clocking out. By the time I was done, I'd spent a good 45 minutes doing different yoga poses, running in place, doing push-ups and rowing squats (which is a very awkward pose) and all kinds of other stuff. I was sweating, my legs were sore--almost numb--and I had pain everywhere. It was great. I don't know if this whole thing will really work, but it was fun and I felt like I'd done real exercise. We'll see how it pans out.
Anyway, when I was done, I jiggled my fat self off the little board and made room for Tami. Nervously, she stepped on and, to my delight, the same little agonized computer voice groaned "oh." It ran her through the same battery of tests and then came the big drum-roll. We waited. I was ready to cheer when I learned that Tami was overweight and Tami was getting ready to cry. (And I've got to confess, I didn't care. I hoped that little computer nag let her have it--they had ridden me so hard, I figured it'd be fair). Then the results came and it was a gigantic kick in my flabby, jiggly stomach: Tami was informed that she's in the normal range. Her little Mii jumped up and down and held her arms over her head before rushing off to stand on the screen next to my dumpy, pudgy little character. Danny Boy just stood there looking doughy (and sweaty) and Tami's Mii kept hopping around, looking like she'd just won the world series. This started everybody laughing again.
The real me just watched for a second and then I scuffled off to the bathroom and locked myself in with a box of ice cream sandwiches, a 2-liter of Diet Coke and a handful of granola bars. Of course, any sobs that leaked out of my throat were drowned out by the laughter from the living room. "A couple clicks away from deceased and they're still laughing." I munched on my snacks and chewed quickly (mainly because the computer nag had told me to chew slowly) before taking a big gulp of Diet Coke straight from the 2-liter. "Yeah, we'll see who's laughing when I'm dead." A smile started to creep up the corners of my face and I was just nodding my head when I realized that I was talking about my own death. I paused for a second before finishing off 2 more ice cream sandwiches and I started making notes on the back of the ice-cream sandwich box. Notes about my funeral. I'm choosing Pall Bearers. Tami's going to be one. So is Caleb--he laughed so hard at me he wet himself. And I'm going to request, in my will, that the Pall Bearers walk my sarcophagus (can you call the coffin of a really, really fat guy just a coffin? It doesn't seem . . . massive enough). Anyway, I'm going to request that my sarcophagus be hauled around the cemetery--like a lap. Maybe I'll request two laps of the cemetery.
I smiled as I munched down my last granola bar without even taking it out of the wrapper. I could hear them in the living room . . . exercising with their little Wii Fit . . . and I nodded to myself. "Keep exercising Tam. Keep exercising children. You're going to need to be pretty fit when I go . . . pretty fit, indeed."
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