New Fit Beginnings

So to go with my fresh start and I guess with the new year, is a new dedication to losing weight and, more importantly, to getting fit.

As many of you will no doubt know health and fitness is not as much about weight, no so much about a number as it is about being heart healthy, being strong and fit and being wise in the choices that you make and the decisions that you make about your health.

When the spousal unit asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I told him I wanted a WII and a WII Fit. Of course, this was in early December and everybody and I do mean EVERYBODY was sold out of one or both of them. So I told the hubby to not even bother to try to find them until January.

Then I lost my job.

At this point I did not expect him to still purchase either unit until I was working again. After all, money is going to be tight, very tight, until that happens.

However, he knew that stocks were always low and when the units came in, he grabbed one. He works for one the big wholesale companies. In early January, he tells me they got in 25 units of the WII console and all were sold in minutes. One of the them to him.

Last week there was a return of a new, unopened WII Fit. The staff member at the returns desk is a friend of the spousal unit and knew he was looking for one, so she called him and told him to come get it, which he did.

I now have both units and I started with the basics - the games. Slalom skiing and ski jumping being the favourites.

On the second day I took a better look at what is offered. The WII Fit game has four main sections, Yoga, Strength, Aerobics and Balance. There is also a favourites section for quick launching without jumping around.

I started with the Yoga, which encompasses basic Yoga posses and stretching. Next I moved on the Strength section, again basic exercises that can be done with mostly stretching and balancing. Aerobics includes jogging, hula hoops and a step class (reminiscent of the dance arcade games). The Balance games are largely fun.

The WII Fit experience initially begins with creating your MII -- the virtual you. Each day that you log into your WII Fit session you have the opportunity to take a Body Test - this measures your BMI and weight and gauges your balance. It is here that the system tracks your progress. Graphs showing that progress are available.

I haven't been using it long but I have already made progress, I'm down 1.1 pounds and have lost a few points of the BMI measure provided by the console.

Is this the be all and end all of fitness? the magic pill? Frankly no it isn't. However, it is another tool that, if used effectively, can become an important of a fitness regimen. One of the issues I always had when I was going to the gym is that I never stretched before or after. The fact that I had only 1 major fitness injury in all those years is, well, a minor miracle.

WII Fit is not the only option that we have for fitness though. The basic WII console system comes with WII Sports, which includes Tennis, Golf, Bowling, Baseball and Boxing. The Spousal unit and I spend a couple of hours a week playing these as well.

For my New Fit Beginnings, I'm taking advantage of the WII and WII Fit and I'm going to keep up with my routines until a routine becomes a habit and as we all know habits are hard to break.

a fresh start

A couple of years ago I was let go, due to cutbacks, from a job that I had held for 16 years. It wasn't a shock at all, it was in fact, expected.

Still nobody likes to be fired, even with a big settlement.

Having settlement in hand, I took advantage of the paid time off and returned to school to change my career path. In school I was very successful, graduating at the top of my class.

When school finished and just as my settlement was running out, I landed a job in my new career path. The company wasn't all I wanted, the pay certainly less then I'd like but I needed a foot in the door job, an experience job. So I took it.

Then the economy went south and so did my job. In Canada, we've not been hit as hard as some areas of the US but we're not immune to it either. Especially when the client base of my former company was largely US based.

I was hired as an Education Specialist and lots of promises were made about the projects I'd be working on and the leeway that I would have to shape the training material. None of that materialized.

I know find myself unemployed in a very tough job market, without that large settlement to fall back on this time. I face each day now as a chance to make a fresh start, to find that job that is the right fit and not just an experience job.

Here's to a fresh start.