Wii Fit Challenge: week 6

Condition 2: 77 pounds to lose

Injury! I sat on the ground, clutching my right leg, yelling, “Why!”as if Jeff Gillooly had executed an attack planned by Tonya Harding. Pain erupted through my foot, as my toes convulsed uncontrollably. Fighting my way to my feet, I gritted my teeth through the pain as I put weight back down on my injured right foot. I started to hobble my way back into the burning building to get the rest of the old lady’s cats out safely. 

At least that’s how I wished it had happened. Instead, the truth is much stranger than fiction. Sherman, set the Wayback machine for one week ago.

It’s the summer, time for a cookout. We had been invited over to a friend’s for a summer barbeque. They have a nice home, in-ground pool, and three German Shepherds. 

Her dogs have often played with my moose, so, naturally, we brought her over to join in the festivities. 

All was well, until the age old conundrum took place: two dogs, one hot dog. A dogfight that looked more like an MMA match-up ensued, and me, the even conscientious dog owner, tried, along with our friend, to break it up. 

Trying to hold back a 140 pound Great Dane, is kind of like standing in front of a car with the idea that you can stop it with only your strength. If the car driver wants to stop, you live. If they don’t, you get run over. My dog ran me over. 

A trip to the emergency vet was enough to patch my moose up (apparently, the Shepherd had left a few bite marks in some particularly bleed-happy locations in the moose’s mouth, but a few stitches later and she was all better), but the next day the right foot started to ache, my right foot that is. 

As it turns out, it looks like I sprained my big toe on my right foot, and possible a few more. While this doesn’t sound too particularly bad, it hurts like a mo-fo. Now, my wife does maintain that I have the pain threshold of a three-year-old girl, but this shit does hurt. I’m sitting here, no weight on my foot whatsoever, and it hurts. Then it likes to spasm. All of the toes on my right foot start to twitch and hurt all at once. This sucks.

So, now I am on the disabled list, and all I can do is sit here and wonder if a dog eating a hot dog is considered cannibalism. 

After a day of sulking, or three, I decided I needed to really be strict with my diet, and find an alternate form of exercise. With having all three kids this weekend, it seemed the only thing I had available to me was the pool. Our pool in the backyard isn’t much, but it does meet all of the pool criteria (holds a shitload of water), so I spent the good portion of the weekend and some of the week in the pool. 

Now, my pool is certainly not large enough to do laps but, as it turns out, just being outside in the hot weather and playing with the kids in the pool ended up being a pretty good workout. I was quite happy to see that my sidelining didn’t damage my weight loss. In fact, I actually did pretty good for the week. So, here are the numbers:

Starting Weight: 260 lbs Ending Weight: 255 lbs (loss of 5 pounds) Starting BMI: 34.3% Ending BMI: 33.6% (loss of .7%)

Injury aside, I am discovering that this was a lot easier to do when I didn’t have so many distractions. My boredom with the Wii Fit game has made it all the more easy to pick up other games. Lately, it’s been more enjoyable to play God Of War and Star Trek Online than it is to get up and work out. 

Again, I think this is due to the flaws in the Wii as well as the Wii Fit. It stopped being fun, whereas the other games I am playing are fun. It’s not to say that Wii Fit isn’t fun, it’s just not as fun as my other games. And the sad thing is, I have a ton of ideas that would make it a lot more fun. 

Excuses aside, with being on the road to recovery, I am finding new motivation to get back on the board. It’s like wanting something you can’t have. When I was able to work out, I didn’t want to. Now that I can’t, I am counting down the days until I can get back into it. I’m hoping this will help, that, and the motivation to be able to eat more. 

My average Wii Fit workout burned 400 calories, and without being able to workout, I’ve had to remove those calories from my diet, so, needless to say, I am frigging hungry right about now. In fact, I almost fear next week’s weigh-in, as I am starting to anticipate my first week of failure for the project. I guess time will tell.

One thing I am noticing in all of this: dieting is expensive. First is the cost of food. It seems that in our infinite wisdom, eating healthy is more expensive than eating poorly. 

I’ve seen families of four eat off the McDonald’s Dollar Menu for less then $10, but I can’t walk out of Panera Bread with a salad and drink for less then $10. A family trip would require a credit check at the door. 

Second, I’ve spent over $200 in the course of the experiment, specifically on smaller clothes. I know, I shouldn’t be bitching about this. It’s the natural progression of things, but it is still expensive. Then again, heart surgery and funeral services would certainly cost more. 

All in all, the hardest thing I have to face is getting back on the balance board and getting my ass moving again. Injury aside, I have to get rid of the excuses and just start moving, because I could certainly screw all this up royally and put all of the weight back on. I must call upon all of the Lords of Willpower to keep going!

Next week there should, hopefully, be some progress as I make my way back into the Wii Fit realm, but until next time, feel free to write me at Jason@ironotaku.net.

The last challenge details and results are here.