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The Madame Tussaud’s museum is getting more specific every year.

Ever since the announcement of Wii Fit, people were deriding the idea of exercising with a video game. Then, when the game was released, people wailed and wailed that it wasn’t a very good way to exercise – the brevity of most activities and the start-stop nature of having to re-enter the menu to do something different were of chief concerns. While these are valid points to make, I still think that people are missing the overall idea behind the game – to get a person moving.

We’re in an age now where we expect technology to make us more and more passive with each and every year. Yeah, the interactivity of the game has flaws, of course, but this is the first game to do an excellent job at going against the grain, against the stereotypes of people, including the US President, who claim that gaming is making us fat and lazy (this argument is, itself, lazy, as we make ourselves that way, not some outside factor). The game comes with something that so few of the naysayers seem to talk about, though, and something that has helped me a great deal, the 30 minute run.

I used to love to run. LOVE LOVE LOVE. About 6 years ago, though, I blew out something in my knee. Not having health insurance, though, meant I was never able to even afford a specialists appointment to find out what was wrong, much less do something about it. Anyhow, for a short time last year I had health insurance, and was able to have surgery that fixed my problem. After months of physical therapy, I felt confident enough to begin working out again, including running. I started out lightly, 10 minute runs a couple times a week, building up to 30 minute runs on the Wii Fit, 3 times a week. And guess what? Over the course of the last 2 and a half months, I’ve lost over 11 pounds. I still have a long way to go before I’m happy, but the point is it works.

A friend of mine said once “Oh, yeah, Wii Fit is fine if you don’t want to pretend to work out.” That’s BS. If you’re the type of person that won’t push yourself independently on a video game, you’re not going to push yourself in a gym. I soak through a shirt every run that I take. Yeah, I’m not getting the MOST out of running, as I’m not running with a full stride, and only in place, but going barefoot in my living room has also allowed me to feel how I’ve been running incorrectly for years, placing all my weight on the outsides of me feet when I should have been balancing it more across my feet.

I’m a little all over the place here, but my point is, I am a strong proponent of exercise games, and Wii Fit was the game that helped me champion the cause. Haters gonna hate, and all that, I understand, and that’s okay. While you hate in the corner, I’m going to continue to get all Ivan Drago over here.

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