day 9...
so I have exercised at least 20 minutes or more for the past 9 days.
weight seems to be basically holding steady. that must mean the fat i am losing is turning into muscle. 20 wii minutes is really like 30-40 real time minutes, but as i am opening up more reps and don't have to watch the demos, etc., the time estimate will be closer to reality. i hope.
hubby and i are toying with the idea of trying to run a 5k together. i have no doubt that he could do it... that would take a ton more discipline on my part than i have every had.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
still a wii bit unfit, but getting better
We've had our Wii Fit for about a month now, and I am getting the hang of it. Overall, it was a good purchase. Now that I have had more reps open up on many of the exercises, I don't feel like I am wasting as much time clicking between activities. So for those of you who have not yet jumped on the Wii Fit bandwagon, here are some of my thoughts...
Pros:
-Yoga and Strength Training form is taught better than many of the exercise videos I have done, because the balance board enables it to give you feedback on your position.
-Balance games are fun.
-Aerobic exercises start slow for novices like myself who have never had much coordination.
-No need to leave the house.
-No embarassment about lack of coordination while others in a class are stable and I'm wobbling on one limb.
-Tracks your time, suggests excercise sets (strength and yoga)
-When the kids need you, you can stop and resume later.
-Lets you document exercises and household activities for "credits", tracks progress, to a limited extent.
-Lets you figure in your clothes' weight.
Cons:
-Initial time "wasted" clicking between screens etc. may just be more than the time it would take me to drive to the gym.
-The BMI calculator is not accurate. It has no way of figuring in muscle mass. This is important for people like my hubby, who actually have muscles.
-Not only is the BMI innacurate for children, it may call healthy kids who it inaccurately thinks are overweight obese.... the machines sense of humor could hurt some young ones' feelings. Maybe they should just skip the body test and do the fun stuff. (Bear hasn't seemed to notice, but apparently Elizabeth Hasselback has spoken out against it on The View.) Or maybe they'll just talk back to it like I do.
-Some of the tips and hints are repetitive and get annoying.
-The Fit suggests you get together and play with friends, but the Wii is not configured to recognize more than one balance board at a time.
Am I glad we have it? Yes. Am I getting overwhelmingly great results? No, but I am not consistent, so that's not entirely the Wii's fault. I am noticing an increase in endurance, balance, and coordination on certain exercises. But I wish the weather would get warmer so I could supplement my Wii Activity and videos with a low tech-jog with my new running shoes. (First new pair in 7 years.)
Oh, and just to track progress.... my size 12's are getting loose. I weighed about 170 lbs. with Buddy inside me, and I am now around 145, depending on the normal variables.
We've had our Wii Fit for about a month now, and I am getting the hang of it. Overall, it was a good purchase. Now that I have had more reps open up on many of the exercises, I don't feel like I am wasting as much time clicking between activities. So for those of you who have not yet jumped on the Wii Fit bandwagon, here are some of my thoughts...
Pros:
-Yoga and Strength Training form is taught better than many of the exercise videos I have done, because the balance board enables it to give you feedback on your position.
-Balance games are fun.
-Aerobic exercises start slow for novices like myself who have never had much coordination.
-No need to leave the house.
-No embarassment about lack of coordination while others in a class are stable and I'm wobbling on one limb.
-Tracks your time, suggests excercise sets (strength and yoga)
-When the kids need you, you can stop and resume later.
-Lets you document exercises and household activities for "credits", tracks progress, to a limited extent.
-Lets you figure in your clothes' weight.
Cons:
-Initial time "wasted" clicking between screens etc. may just be more than the time it would take me to drive to the gym.
-The BMI calculator is not accurate. It has no way of figuring in muscle mass. This is important for people like my hubby, who actually have muscles.
-Not only is the BMI innacurate for children, it may call healthy kids who it inaccurately thinks are overweight obese.... the machines sense of humor could hurt some young ones' feelings. Maybe they should just skip the body test and do the fun stuff. (Bear hasn't seemed to notice, but apparently Elizabeth Hasselback has spoken out against it on The View.) Or maybe they'll just talk back to it like I do.
-Some of the tips and hints are repetitive and get annoying.
-The Fit suggests you get together and play with friends, but the Wii is not configured to recognize more than one balance board at a time.
Am I glad we have it? Yes. Am I getting overwhelmingly great results? No, but I am not consistent, so that's not entirely the Wii's fault. I am noticing an increase in endurance, balance, and coordination on certain exercises. But I wish the weather would get warmer so I could supplement my Wii Activity and videos with a low tech-jog with my new running shoes. (First new pair in 7 years.)
Oh, and just to track progress.... my size 12's are getting loose. I weighed about 170 lbs. with Buddy inside me, and I am now around 145, depending on the normal variables.
Tackle It Tuesday
It's been a while since I posted a tackle. Today, I am returning to my old habit of posting my mundane list and changing the colors after they are completed.
Dishes- empty dishwasher, refill, wash pans
Laundry- wash, fold, put away--- it's accumulating on the guest bed, as usual.
Research area "learning" activities at symphony, museums, library, zoo, etc....
Post office trip
play with kids
For more Tackles, go to www.5minutesformom.com.
It's been a while since I posted a tackle. Today, I am returning to my old habit of posting my mundane list and changing the colors after they are completed.
Dishes- empty dishwasher, refill, wash pans
Laundry- wash, fold, put away--- it's accumulating on the guest bed, as usual.
Research area "learning" activities at symphony, museums, library, zoo, etc....
Post office trip
play with kids
For more Tackles, go to www.5minutesformom.com.
good morning!
ok, i want sleep. the kids are asleep. why am i awake? i should be productive and fold laundry....
this post is beginning to sound like my facebook profile status update.
a couple of days ago, i asked Bear if she wants to go to school or stay home and have mommy be her teacher. this was after a visit to a mom's day out where a couple of my friends send their kids in which she really seemed to want to stay and play on the playground. anyway, her birthday is a month past the state's kindergarten entry deadline. this means that the state says she can't go to kindergarten until she is almost 6. in my opinion, she will be ready before then. the child is identifying beginning consonant sounds, she is a "mother hen" in her sunday school class, and she loves to learn. she soaks up names of plants and birds. she loves older kids.
one of my reasons in adding education to my major in college was that i thought i might want to homeschool my kids some day. then i taught public high school for 2 years. while most of you might think that would be incentive to keep my kids at home, it actually had the opposite effect on me. i realized the serious responsibility that home-schooling parents face, and questioned whether i am up to that challenge. i had a few "students" (kids who were on my class roll but rarely showed up and when they did were not exactly eager to participate) who withdrew from school in order to "home-school". God help them. if they could not get motivated to work under the instruction of caring teachers like myself, and if their parents did not care enough to return my phone calls, how were they possibly going to truly learn at home? i envisioned them sleeping in and taking only open-book tests.
after my brief stint as a teacher in a public school, i had the opportunity to tutor home schoolers through a private tutorial at a local church. MOST of those kids reminded my why i had initially considered home-schooling. their faith and work-ethics were phenomenal. yes, i had at last one student who was ineligible to return to that tutorial program, and she reminded me of some of the students who had dropped out.
anyway, the core of my internal debate is not so much my daughter's capability or even my past experiences in the field of education. it's the knowledge that i am lazy and unmotivated by nature and can't even get myself into a system to keep up with, well, anything. so how on earth can i teach my child effectively? that whole "socialization" debate that often accompanies objections to home schooling does not apply, in my opinion. there are plenty of social opportunities for home schoolers. there are multiple resources for parents, and many kids thrive because they are not limited by the budget restraints or distractions of conventional classrooms. however, being a product of a combination of christian and public education, and having been a teacher, i don't buy into the fear-based theory that christian kids will definitely be corrupted in public schools any more than i buy into the theory that they will be sheltered in private christian schools. kids are kids, and peer pressure exists everywhere. as parents, it is our responsibility to teach our kids values. my parents weren't perfect, but the foundation God gave us through them was not broken when we went to public schools.
it's 4 a.m. my improper punctuation and grammar may demonstrate to some that i should not home school my kids. i'm tempted to close the comments on this post, but this blog has been dead for a while, and as i have nothing else to discuss at the moment, feel free to post your thoughts. i'm not looking for debate, just thinking out loud here. God knows my mind is enough of a forum for debates. feel free to think along with me, if you like. at the very least, pray that i will not let my indecisive nature hinder my daughter's intellectual development. (i don't see that happening, she seems to be doing just fine. but the decision is what will be "just fine" and what will help her truly thrive? i know, only hubby and i can make that decision.)
ok, i want sleep. the kids are asleep. why am i awake? i should be productive and fold laundry....
this post is beginning to sound like my facebook profile status update.
a couple of days ago, i asked Bear if she wants to go to school or stay home and have mommy be her teacher. this was after a visit to a mom's day out where a couple of my friends send their kids in which she really seemed to want to stay and play on the playground. anyway, her birthday is a month past the state's kindergarten entry deadline. this means that the state says she can't go to kindergarten until she is almost 6. in my opinion, she will be ready before then. the child is identifying beginning consonant sounds, she is a "mother hen" in her sunday school class, and she loves to learn. she soaks up names of plants and birds. she loves older kids.
one of my reasons in adding education to my major in college was that i thought i might want to homeschool my kids some day. then i taught public high school for 2 years. while most of you might think that would be incentive to keep my kids at home, it actually had the opposite effect on me. i realized the serious responsibility that home-schooling parents face, and questioned whether i am up to that challenge. i had a few "students" (kids who were on my class roll but rarely showed up and when they did were not exactly eager to participate) who withdrew from school in order to "home-school". God help them. if they could not get motivated to work under the instruction of caring teachers like myself, and if their parents did not care enough to return my phone calls, how were they possibly going to truly learn at home? i envisioned them sleeping in and taking only open-book tests.
after my brief stint as a teacher in a public school, i had the opportunity to tutor home schoolers through a private tutorial at a local church. MOST of those kids reminded my why i had initially considered home-schooling. their faith and work-ethics were phenomenal. yes, i had at last one student who was ineligible to return to that tutorial program, and she reminded me of some of the students who had dropped out.
anyway, the core of my internal debate is not so much my daughter's capability or even my past experiences in the field of education. it's the knowledge that i am lazy and unmotivated by nature and can't even get myself into a system to keep up with, well, anything. so how on earth can i teach my child effectively? that whole "socialization" debate that often accompanies objections to home schooling does not apply, in my opinion. there are plenty of social opportunities for home schoolers. there are multiple resources for parents, and many kids thrive because they are not limited by the budget restraints or distractions of conventional classrooms. however, being a product of a combination of christian and public education, and having been a teacher, i don't buy into the fear-based theory that christian kids will definitely be corrupted in public schools any more than i buy into the theory that they will be sheltered in private christian schools. kids are kids, and peer pressure exists everywhere. as parents, it is our responsibility to teach our kids values. my parents weren't perfect, but the foundation God gave us through them was not broken when we went to public schools.
it's 4 a.m. my improper punctuation and grammar may demonstrate to some that i should not home school my kids. i'm tempted to close the comments on this post, but this blog has been dead for a while, and as i have nothing else to discuss at the moment, feel free to post your thoughts. i'm not looking for debate, just thinking out loud here. God knows my mind is enough of a forum for debates. feel free to think along with me, if you like. at the very least, pray that i will not let my indecisive nature hinder my daughter's intellectual development. (i don't see that happening, she seems to be doing just fine. but the decision is what will be "just fine" and what will help her truly thrive? i know, only hubby and i can make that decision.)
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