Category: Fitness

Arrival of the Fitness

As everyone who read my write-up of the demo likely expected, I did end up purchasing the full version of Fitness Boxing. I was on the fence all the way up until the night before release day, when I randomly noticed that the Government of Canada had graciously sent me a free $100 GST refund. What better way to spend it on than software for improving my physical well-being? (And also that way I can get around taking the cost out of my video game budget.)

Before I go any farther, I just want to take a second to express my disappointment that my stats from the demo didn’t carry over into the full game. It’s not really a big deal and not at all worth getting upset about, but I pouted about it for a little while anyway. End sidebar.

When I wrote about it last time, I mentioned that Fitness Boxing has a bit of a limited song selection. That’s definitely still an issue, but the sheer variety of other options almost makes up for it. The demo’s daily workout was always just one or two 5-minute routines, but the full game gives you many more options. You can choose the duration of your workout, what part of your body you’d like to focus on, if you’d like to do a guided stretch before and after, and whether you’re out to burn off extra calories or just maintain your current level of fitness. The daily routine has definitely been good for me so far; a 35ish-minute workout that mixes around routines and songs enough that even though I’m just shadow-boxing at my TV for half an hour every day, it hasn’t started to feel repetitive.

I haven’t really explored all of the other options, because one is just to choose a song and/or routine and then have at ‘er, and the rest is two-player stuff I’ll never touch. I have been swapping out trainers every day, though! They all have the exact same lines and basically just differ in physical appearance and voice, but I still haven’t been able to settle on one. I’m leaning toward just sticking with Lin, because all the other girls have larger breasts (or Lin is the only one who wears a proper sports bra) and their unusual jiggle physics weird me out. Can I take a moment to wonder why this exercise program even has boob jiggle to begin with? Was that particular omission going to be the thing that ruins players’ immersion? I guess there are a couple male trainers to choose from as well, but… no.

Something else that is proving to be an issue is that the game uses your weight to help track your progress, and by extension, customize your workouts. But it doesn’t support the Wii Balance Board and I don’t own any other scales. So I guess I actually do have to go buy an accessory to get the most out of Fitness Boxing. (That or boot up Wii Fit U once a week to weigh myself. Nah.) On the other hand, all the extra physical activity I’m getting is great for helping to expedite egg hatching in Pokémon GO, now that that game imports data from my phone’s activity tracker. I’m definitely punching my way to more kilometers “walked” than I’m getting from actual walking these days. I blame winter.

Yes, I still play Pokémon GO. Wanna fight about it?

One fun thing I noticed is that they mark unlockables on the calendar at the estimated date you’ll earn it, and each one is earned through a milestone number of punches. At the outset, I had rewards reaching all the way into 2020, but after two days of vigorous workouts, the game had recalculated my last unlock to be in June 2019. And that was before I upped my daily workout from 25 to 35 minutes. Regardless of how long it’ll take to earn everything, I like the idea that the game is always giving you that little incentive to keep going.

Overall, I’m having a great time with Fitness Boxing. I described it as “the best mini-game from Wii Fit, turned into a full game” before, but now I think that a better comparison might be “DDR, but with punching”. Sure, I’ve only had it for two weeks and it’s still got that new game smell, but I think I can stick with this one for a while. I know that eventually it’s going to get dropped by the wayside, but I hope to keep it up at least until winter goes away and I can start getting outside and running again.

If absolutely nothing else, it helps me feel better about myself and gives me another excuse to avoid going to an actual gym. And that makes it worth every dang penny.

A Fresh Fitness Fixation

Remember Wii Fit? Man, that was a pretty fun way to delude myself into believing that I was getting a reasonable amount of exercise. All those delightful little activities that gamified physical exertion, bound to the somewhat cumbersome but absolutely integral Wii Balance Board accessory. Which, I might add, doesn’t work properly on my condo’s carpet. I got really into Wii Fit three or four times, always quickly falling off the wagon, like you do when you’re as lazy and unmotivated as me.

My favourite exercise on Wii Fit was the Rhythm Boxing, where you’d use a combination of the balance board, wiimote, and nunchuk to simulate beating up a robotic punching bag. It wasn’t overly challenging, and was kind of slow since it was simon-esque, where your trainer would call out a sequence of moves which you’d then have to copy. I tried to put wrist weights on my arms to get more out of it, but that ended up somehow making my punches harder to read. Accelerometers! They’re weird!

Fast-forward to earlier this month when this demo for a game called Fitness Boxing shows up on the Switch eShop. In the summer months I likely would have ignored it completely, but now that we’re in the middle of winter where I’m getting little exercise and trying to avoid a never-ending tidal wave of holiday junk food, I decided to see what was up. Oh lordy-loo, was I ever in for a nice surprise!

Fitness Boxing, as it turns out, is a game developed by Imagineer and published by… Nintendo? This becomes very obvious when you see that the game’s menus are ripped almost directly from Wii Fit. The overall style and green-and-white theme were immediately familiar. I’m pretty sure that even the fonts are exactly the same. So that’s a good start. Clearly Nintendo had a hand in guiding this project along, so there’s likely going to be a good level of polish to it. What sets it apart the most, in non-gameplay terms anyhow, is that your trainer is no longer a pale mannequin. Despite the title screen’s featureless lady, there’s an actual character named Lin, who is animated quite poorly and has a noticeable Japanese accent. I find her surprisingly charming, but you can unlock five other trainers if she’s not doing it for you.

So the gameplay, it’s got a similar framework to Wii Fit, where you do a daily check-in exercise and are then free to play around as you want with the other modes. But this one’s all boxing, all the time! And also, the call-and-repeat format is axed in favour of a much more fast-paced system that plays just like any other rhythm game. You’ve got two scrolling tracks on the screen, and various symbols will scroll by. Your job is to deliver the correct type of punch with precise timing, all to the beat of the music. It’s a lot of fun! They also get your lower body moving by having you change up your stance once in a while, and encouraging you to bob back and forth to the beat. The best part is that the only accessories you need to play are the joy-cons; I’ll never have to pull out that awkward balance board again.

While the workouts are very fun on their own and high-score mechanic gives you something to strive for (besides better physical wellness), Fitness Boxing has another trick up its sleeve to keep you coming back for more: a constant stream of unlockables. From songs, to workout routines, to new clothing options for your trainer, it seems like there are a ton of things to unlock in this game. Some are gated behind good performance, and some are based on checking in for a certain number of days. I’m sure they won’t be a long-term draw, but just the idea of so many things to earn has me very invested in the idea of purchasing the full version. What can I say? I just love amassing collections of pointless virtual junk!

As for the music… that’s the one part where Fitness Boxing really falls flat. There are twenty popular songs to punch along to; I think that I genuinely like four of the tracks and despise roughly half of the list. The nice part is that they’re all vocal-free, electronic covers, so even the worst ones don’t grate on me as much as they could. Did I think I’d ever find myself getting fired up to Kelly Clarkson’s “Stronger”? Not in a million years, but it happened! 20 songs also seems like a very limited selection; and I really hope that there are a few DLC songs in the pipeline, but don’t actually expect to see any. Maybe if the game gets really popular, but that seems unlikely.

If it wasn’t clear before, I’m pretty well sold on buying the full version of Fitness Boxing when it comes out in January. I’m not 100% on board yet, but it seems likely. The demo version has already run its course, since they give you a very limited number of plays (three daily workouts and ten “free play” sessions), so we’ll have to see if I’m still interested come next week, or if the excitement has already passed by then. But I sure had a heck of a lot of fun with the demo!

I hate healthy eating

You know what? I friggin’ hate yogurt.

But this is no surprise to me. I’ve never liked it ever since I was a kid, and I still don’t. Regardless, I’m eating the stuff nearly every day now, having replaced my daily sandwich with a cup of plain Greek yogurt and blueberries, but it’s not getting any better. It’s not growing on me and I am not acquiring a taste for it.

Eating healthy in general blows. Maybe it needs more than a month to take, since I’ve made a pretty massive shift in my eating habits all at once, but I’m already sick of it. Replacing candy and chips with nuts and legumes is presumably good for me, but I haven’t lost a pound and I don’t feel any better either physically or mentally. All I feel is the salad-shaped hole in my life that used to be filled with junk food.

I’m highly considering going back to processed junk and fast food. It’ll probably be way easier just to learn to accept being fat and out of shape.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

I had the week off work last week, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t think I did enough with it. I mean, usually that’s how I spend my time off anyway because I’m poor and can’t afford to go anywhere on vacation, except for maybe a day trip to Selkirk. But for some reason I feel as though I should have “accomplished” more, even though I did get a handful of important things done, and had plenty of fun.

Monday was a good day, but not productive in any way. Edwin and I spent nearly the entire day clearing Super Mario 64 in a single sitting, and banging our heads against Syphon Filter. Not the usual write-off, because I spent the day playing video games with a friend instead of all by my lonesome. I also briefly visited with a number of out-of-town relatives in the evening, as there was a gathering and dinner at my grandparent’s place. Mmmm… delicious steak. Also I put gas in my car for the first time in probably two months. Closed out the evening by staying up too late after purchasing Citadale: the Legends Trilogy and hacking my way through the second chapter.

Tuesday morning was spent finishing off the final episode of Tales From the Borderlands, which was as excellent as the first episode was boring. In the afternoon, I had a very successful dentist appointment. No new cavities, and they showed me before and after photos so that I could see exactly how much crap was piling up between my teeth because I don’t floss. Also I finally made appointments to get a crown placed on my tooth that got a root canal two years ago, so that’s nice. Later on, watched The Bachelorette with my family, as we do. As for the rest of the evening? Probably spent watching Mike Tyson Mysteries or Game Grumps. I’m sure I stayed up way too late again, because I distinctly remember thinking “Welp, I’m definitely not going to feel like accomplishing anything on Wednesday morning.”

Wednesday came along, and much like Tuesday evening, I have no recollection of how I spent it. I know I played a few stages in Azure Striker Gunvolt, but where the rest of that time went is a mystery. ARMS, maybe? I had to take my brother to a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon, after which we picked up pizza for lunch and then I finally began playing Final Fantasy XV. That evening, like most Wednesday evenings, I spent hanging out with Edwin again. On our quest to find dinner, we discovered that the Freshii by my parents’ house was finally open, so we opted to try it out. Then came a notable amount of progress in BioShock Infinite, which I am so torn on. I am quite enjoying the world and the story, and almost wish that there wasn’t any combat, because it’s really more of an annoyance than anything.

Thursday was the day I feel like I really accomplished something. I woke up early and took my car into the shop, as it had recently become very loud. Turned out that it just blew a gasket, not the whole muffler, so it was a relatively cheap fix. I got some exercise by walking home after dropping off the car, and even made a belated phone call about getting free internet in my new condo on the way. Then I ran back once the repairs were done, which pretty well burned me out. I spent the entire afternoon with FFXV, though I did take a short break to go out for another half-hour run. Then, dinner and more FFXV. It was that night when I realized that FFXV was going to stop me doing anything productive until it was done.

Friday morning was very busy! Splatoon Day! Zack and I drove all over creation looking for amiibos and the fabled Splatoon 2 pro controller for Switch. We found most of the amiibos, but no pro controllers, although we did luck into stumbling across a good birthday gift for my dad. By the time we were done, we had been out shopping for so long that on the way home we picked up Fatburger for lunch. I took in a couple episodes of Bob’s Burgers while I ate, and then spent the afternoon playing Splatoon 2, which had easily been my most anticipated Switch game. Then a couple hours break to log some more time in FFXV, and then back to Splatoon 2. I played Salmon Run all evening, only stopping because my Switch’s battery died and the wi-fi signal in my room is spotty at best, so TV play is currently not an option for online games.

There were a number of other grown-up things I could have accomplished during my week, but put off in favour of having fun. Even a lot of fun things got sidelined. No movies, no reading, no drawing; all put off in favour of sinking more hours into Final Fantasy XV. In the end, though, I had a good week. I spent way too much money on junk food and amiibos, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles, I suppose. At least when you’re me.

Gotta go somewhat hastily

Last summer, I decided that “running” was a thing that I was going to do. I came up with a specific course, and my goal was to decrease the time it took me to get around it. While I did not achieve my target time, I did get my time down quite a bit from the initial run. So that’s good! Something to be proud of!

This year, I’ve gotten a late start on the actual running thing, but I have been getting out for long walks every weekend, so it’s not a complete wash. And since I’ve been displaced from my course, I have to come up with a new one. Or maybe not. I might not set a clear goal this year. For whatever reason, having goals is more likely to dissuade me from doing things. It’s weird. I’m weird. I much prefer to just go with the flow. Like a hedonist but with more body image issues.

Going out for a run is so hard at first. Even with a little stretching and a glass of water to prep, I get done with that first burst of energy, and then things just go to pot. I puff and I wheeze and my mouth gets all full of that sticky saliva that makes everything worse. I’ll walk for a bit, then try to run some more, but can’t get nearly as far. Rinse an repeat until I get back home, but with the walk cycle getting longer and the run cycle getting shorter each time.

Then I get back home, have a nice glass of water and sit for five minutes. I’m absolutely dead when I get back, but after a short rest and rehydration, I feel as though I could conquer the world. So I go back out, and that’s where the bulk of my time is spent. The second “leg” of my journey is always so much easier. I still puff and wheeze, but I feel that it’s a lot easier to push myself at this point than on the first part of the run. Also, much less of the sticky saliva, so it no longer feels like my throat is closing off from the goo.

I am not a runner, or an athlete of any capacity. So I have no idea why it’s so much easier to run more after pooping myself out and taking a short break. I don’t think it’s the runner’s high, but maybe it is? I thought that was more of a “during the run” kind of thing.

Either way, I’m going to do my best to keep it up this year. The main sticking point is going to be getting out more than once a week. I just feel so emotionally drained after a day at the office that it’s difficult to summon the will to do anything, never mind a physically taxing exercises session. And I’m not doing two weekend days in a row. No, sir! I mean, I could, but there is only so much weekend to go around. If I spend it all running and recovering from running, where am I going to fit in all my lazy time?

A weekend of games and stuff

I hate to admit it, because I’ve been trying to diversify the ways I waste time lately, but I spent pretty much the whole weekend playing video games. Well, the time during the weekend that I was conscious. I spent way too much time sleeping in and napping, but I slept terribly last week, so I suppose that I needed it. Anyway, for some reason I feel the need to write about all the nothing I did over the weekend. Really Live Journal it.

Friday night was a blur. Because it’s already so far away, you see. But I do recall that after a long Friday at work, I decided that it was in my best interest to get some physical activity, I opted to take a short walk. Partly because I wanted to do something good for my body, and partly because I wanted to listen to the Talk Nintendo podcast special on Ever Oasis. And by golly, did Casey and Neal ever do a good job of selling that game. I was planning on skipping it, but their gushing praise started to make me reconsider my stance…

Upon returning home, I finally set aside a little time to play ARMS, which I am desperately in love with in theory, but I need a lot more practice because I am awful at it. I managed to get through the easiest level of the single-player mode, but not without some struggles. Also I need to get online and get in on that party mode. Once I was done with that, I cracked and bought Ever Oasis. In retrospect, I should have played the demo first to make sure, but in the end it wouldn’t have dissuaded me anyhow. Although the game was surprisingly small (just over 6200 blocks), the download was slow and would not finish until early the next morning.

Finally, I began playing what might be the only free PS+ game that I’ve been at all interested in since I’ve had the service: Anna: Extended Edition. It is pitched on the store as a psychological horror game wherein you explore an abandoned sawmill to discover its spooky secrets. Late Friday night is like the only good time I get to play horror games, so I was pumped. And then the game turns out to be something of a janky mess. I was so befuddled by the odd control scheme and got stuck on a stupid(ly simple) puzzle that I only played up through the first “stage” before calling it quits and turning in for the night.

The next morning, I woke up late because I had opted not to set any alarms. Then I chose to relive a ritual of Saturday mornings from last summer: watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003 series) while playing Tap My Katamari. I had four episodes left to watch from season four’s “lost episodes” (not on DVD) and burned through those right quick. Afterwards, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do and curled up in bed for a quick nap.

It was after I woke that I realized that Ever Oasis was probably done downloading, and then most of my afternoon just vanished into it. Ever Oasis is a really good game. What Casey and Neal neglected to mention is that it is very slow to start because holy crap does it ever like to take its time explaining everything to you. Also, it is just as hand-holdy as the Zelda series is infamous for being. At least for the first few hours. Eventually it gives you a little more freedom, but the beginning of the game is a slow, unskippable slog. This will undoubtedly discourage replays.

I then decided that it was my mission for the rest of the afternoon to finish Anna, and so I booted the ol’ PS3 back up and jumped back into that mess. The game does have its charms once you let yourself get into it, but I maintain that it could have used a lot more polish. At least have a few of the rougher edges sanded down. Case in point: I was not interested in the game enough to care about solving its obtuse puzzles, and it didn’t take me long to pull up a walkthrough for consultation whenever I felt stuck. I cleared the game, and am weakly considering a quick second playthrough to round up the leftover trophies. On one hand, it’ll be a very easy task that should take no more than half an hour. On the other hand, I don’t really care about this game and should probably just delete it and forget it forever.

Saturday night was the usual board games party. The major difference is that when my brother and I made a trip to the liquor store, we found something highly unexpected: Freedom 35 lager! It’s the Trailer Park Boys branded beer! We were so excited that we each filled up an 8-can carrier and merrily went on our way. The checkout guy must have thought we were nuts.

Many beers led to a hearty sleep-in on Sunday morning. Sort of. I got up at 8:30, had breakfast, watched an episode of Bob’s Burgers, and played some Mighty Gunvolt Burst to grab a few screenshots for the article I wrote on it. Then I passed out again and slept until after noon.

To round out my activities, I went out for an extra-long walk/run after waking up. I was out for two and a half hours, which I think is my longest journey on record so far. Especially since it was only my second outing that included running this year. And yet it was still not long enough to listen to the regular weekly episode of the Talk Nintendo. When I got back, my legs were so done that I showered off and flopped onto bed to nap for an hour, then watched several more episodes of Bob’s Burgers. And then I ate a metric ton of food for dinner and way too much in the way of ice cream treats, completely invalidating all the exercise I’d done earlier.

Finally, I ended the evening the same way that every Sunday evening ends: laundry. In between throwing dirty clothes in the machines and putting away the clean laundry, I tacked a few more hours onto Ever Oasis. Turns out that it’s quite difficult! Monsters hit really, really hard and you can’t dodge-cancel out of attack animations, so you’ve got to be careful. It’s still limiting how far off-course I can explore, but at least it’s not pushing me along the intended route quite as sternly any more.

Alas, eventually the laundry was all done, and that’s my cue to stop whatever fun I’m having and go to bed. I think that’s probably why I hate doing laundry so much. It heralds the end of the freedom of the weekend, and the return of the dreadful work week. Ugh. So disheartening. At least I had a lot of fun over the weekend. And when put into words, it almost seems like I accomplished much more than I actually did. Hurray!

Feel the burn

Should you happen to follow me on Facebook, you probably already know that I’ve taken up running as a way of trying to get into better shape this summer. In my case, it’s really closer to awkward jogging, but that still a lot better than my usual zombie-like shambling. I’m putting a lot of effort into it, too. I try to get out at least every second day, and if I really feel like I can’t push myself that hard, I’ll still make sure to go for a walk, just so that I’m doing something.

Results are mixed thus far. While my legs are pretty much constantly sore from being put through the most activity they’ve seen since I was a child, I do typically feel really great after a run. Oddly enough, despite my massively increased exercise and not eating any differently than I used to, my belt is actually feeling tighter. Which sucks. I’ve also gained a couple kilograms, but I’m going to chalk it up as muscle (I’ve also been working my dumbbells harder than ever). If I accepted it as fat weight, I’d instantly lose all motivation to keep going.

Also, when I was out yesterday, I slipped in a puddle of sludge and tore up my knee a little. I didn’t realize it right away, but it got pretty bloody! Check it out!

Continue reading Feel the burn

Wherein oats are a meal

I began eating oatmeal for breakfast last week, in an attempt to make my diet more healthy.

What I want to know is, how do people eat this stuff? It is disgusting. All goopy and bland and gross. Bleeeech. I tried tossing some fruit and cinnamon on there, but man, it only helped so much. The flavour is really the least of its problems. I just… ugh.

So yeah, I hate oatmeal. But I will continue stuffing it into my face-hole.

This is the price I pay for trying to be less fat.

Wheezing along

I am not in good shape.

As much as I have trying to be more active lately, I seem to be making very small strides. That’s nothing to be ashamed of, of course! You can’t just magically become fit overnight. It takes a lot of time and effort. Unfortunately, since I’m lazy, the more effort something takes, the less encouraged I am to do it. Path of least resistance and whatnot.

Point is, I tried rollerblading last night. It… didn’t go especially well. I lasted approximately 20 minutes before I had to pack it in because I felt like I was going to simply collapse. While I remember them hurting the most during previous rollerblading attempts, my feet seemed quite okay with it all. The pain was almost all in the shins and mah buns. Calves and thighs burned just right, though.

Funny thing is, while I hadn’t strapped on the blades in years previous, last September I managed to rollerblade all the way to my parents’ house one time. I mean, I thought I was literally going to die of heart failure, but I did it. That’s just over an hour walking, so I’d say it must have taken somewhere between 30 and 40 minutes to blade that far. I refuse to believe that I was in better shape in September than I am now. There’s simply no way.

So how did I manage that back then, but I was unable to get even a full half hour last night? Probably that I just lacked motivation to keep going. In September, rollerblading was the only way to get there on that particular day. And while I could already tell it was a terrible idea ten minutes out, turning back would just result in me feeling dead at home, instead of having a fun video game evening with my brother. Last night, I was just doing it for the exercise, and that is rarely motivation enough for me to keep going if I’m getting worn out or just not having any fun with it.

I know that exercise and being in better shape should be its own reward, but unfortunately, that’s not the case for me. Every time I really feel motivated to get my exercise on, it’s because I’ve got a girl on my mind. I don’t know if that says something about misplaced priorities or some other horrible mental failing of mine, but that’s how it is. The worst part is, I’m not really interested in any women who would only be interested in me if I had a more appealing physical figure. So it’s all moot! My life is one big ouroboros of hypocrisy!

I had typed a couple more paragraphs here going to greater detail about my fractured psyche, but that’s no fun, so I erased them. We can talk about that another time. Let’s just stick to my main point for now:

Rollerblading! It’s hard when you’re fat!

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