10 Ways To Get More From Your EA Sports Active

So I’ve been thinking a lot about EA Sports Active work outs (which I sometimes call just the Wii Active) and how after I finish one, I’m sweaty, out of breath, and generally feel like the 30 minutes I spent arguing with my “virtual personal trainer” were worth it. 

But it occurs to me that part of the reason I get really good work outs from the EA Sports Active isn’t necessarily because of what it tells me to do.  I have a whole litany of things I do outside the workouts which burn extra calories.  As I’ve gotten comfortable with EA Sports Active, I’ve really started to concentrate on doing these little extras and I thought I’d share them here so you can get the most from your EA Sports Active workouts, too.

10. Add Your Own Soundtrack to EA Sports Active’s

You know, I debated making this my #1 tip, but I realize not everyone loves their music as me, so I’ll lead with it.  EA Sports Active does have a decent soundtrack, but I find that there is a certain set of songs that really gets me going (see My Playlist above), so I turn the volume down until I can just barely hear my personal trainer’s voice and then I turn on the tunes.

Listening to that music always gets me going and makes the Very Long cardio runs I do go by A LOT quicker.  And, frankly, there are only so many times I can stand hearing the trainer say “You’re running that track like you own it.  WORK IT!” anyway.

9. Bring Water

You should always rehydrate during exercise, but with the EA Sports Active, there are small pauses between each exercise.  I found it was kind of difficult to have a really dry mouth waiting for the next exercise to start, so keep a glass of water close and drink after every one or two exercises.

8. Don’t Stop Moving

For the most part, the exercises in EA Sports Active take between 90 seconds and 5 minutes.  That means over the course of a 30 minute period you can expect to have up to 20 or so times when you are not doing being told to work out.  Don’t stand there!  Keep moving, even if you just pace or dance to the tunes you are blaring, make that body move.  Why?  Because you are going to burn extra calories.

As an added bonus, I find it reduces wear and tear on my body if I don’t have to constantly start and stop moving.

7.  Finish Each Exercise Strong

If you can, try to do the last 30 seconds of an exercise, the last 3 at bats, or whatever you are doing as hard as you can.  Pushing yourself means that you can expand your horizons a lot faster.

6.  Move As Your EA Sports Active Avatar Moves 

If you watching your virtual person on the screen, you’ll notice that he (or she) is up on the ball of her toes during tennis, swaying the music during dance, etc.  Mimic that movement!  Again, this extra movement will allow you to burn more calories.

5. In Fact Do More Than Your Your Avatar Does

I feel like I’ve worked harder if I really over exaggerate the moves on screen.  So, when I am catching balls I really reach for them or crouch down and really go for that ground ball, if I am dancing, I am really swinging my arms out there (don’t concentrate on that image too much).  I’m sure it doesn’t burn more than a few extra calories, but I am sure they’ll add up over time.

4. Practice with the Thigh Strap

I wish someone would have told me this when I started.  The biggest pain in the rear end with EA Sports Active is the thigh strap.  If I have the thigh strap high, the sensor doesn’t seem to work.  If it’s too low, it doesn’t seem to work.  Plus, it took me a few tries to figure out how to get the nunchuk in it.

It took me about 4 workouts to really feel comfortable with it.  So, practice a bit.  Put the strap on before you play the game.  Work on getting the nunchuk in and out quickly so you’re not standing around a lot in between exercises.

Also, no matter how much you practice, you’ll probably have trouble the first time you do a squat.  It’s cool.  Just move the strap up and down until the EA Sports Active decides you really are squatting.  Eventually you will get it!

3. Give Yourself Room to Move 

I try to clear myself a wide space, especially because I do a lot of cardio running.  That way instead of running in place, I run forwards and backwards over about a five foot space.  It hurts my calves less, my avatar moves faster, and I feel like I am working harder.

2. Adjust the Difficutly Level

If you make your own workout, you can adjust the difficulty settings.  Every exercise has 3 difficult levels: easy, medium, and hard.  If you find there is a certain exercise that doesn’t really make you work hard, but that you enjoy (like me and baseball), bump up the difficulty and you will get a better work out.

1. Workout At Least 30 Minutes

 Talk to any exercise scientist, personal trainer, and me and we’ll all agree: work out 30 minutes.  Your body needs about that long to get warmed up and the cool thing is that once it gets warm, it will start to secret enzymes that burn fat!

But that doesn’t happen quickly.  Give yourself time to let your body do its thing.

Now, what are you waiting for?  Get active!

Hungry.  Hungry and deadlift are the key words for the day.

I’m sitting here after writing my unResolution Month post for the day and I am starving.  Part of it was I skipped a snack today.  Work was so hectic that I just completely forget.  And I can tell at night when I’ve skipped a snack because I am so hungry.  So very, very hungy.  But it’s okay, I’m pretty sure it’s appetite over true hunger since I ate pretty reasonably all day, including a killer steak wrap with some fine, fine mock caesar dressing.  Mmmm mmm!

Okay, enough of that.

Work was so non-stop that I told everyone I was going to the gym at 11:30 today.  At 2:00, I finally said F it, I’m going.  The problem was I only had a little over hour to get there, get gas in my car, work out, and get back.  However, in that time I deadlifted (I can still deadlift 315 pounds.  Yay me!)  And burned 200 calories on the elliptical.  Not perfect, but I’ll take it.  That was pretty sweet.  315 pounds…6 plates.

Also on the weight loss front, I got my wife her own EA Sports Active thigh strap and workout bands.  Now we can work out together.  Or at least she can have one that’s not soaked in sweat.  She’s happy.

Weight-losswise, one thing I noticed was this week has been bereft of the very noticeable signs of weight loss from last week.  Not that I’ve gained it all back, there just have not been many major wins.  I’ll know if I am on the right track more tomorrow when I weigh in.  (In case you are wondering, my “week” begins on Friday since that’s when I started so that’s when I’ll weigh myself.)  I am hoping I dropped down to about 378.  We’ll see?

However, if you are starting your own weight loss journey, it’s something to keep in mind.  It’s also different this time since the last time I lost major weight, I gained a pound the first week and lost 9 the next.  Though I was 5 years younger and could work out 2 hours per night.

On the style front, on Jan. 5, I got my haircut and my beard removed and I’ve shaved consistently since then.  I am impressed with myself.  Normally I shave for about a day and then stop.  I guess I really can change myself!

Professionally… well, I didn’t take my planner into the office today and I once again reminded myself why I keep a planner.  I shan’t leave it in the car again any time soon.

Also, I continue with the nightly cube straightening.  It’s a good habit to get into.  I’m also not losing my temper as much as I used to, which is a real plus because I wanted to start screaming at various points throughout the afternoon.  Thankfully I did not.

More tomorrow.

Well, sitting back and looking at today, I can’t say if today was a success, a failure or what.  The reason for my confusion really boils down to two things: lunch and dinner.

For lunch, we tried a new Mexican place.  If you know me,  you’re already saying “uh oh.”   Mexican food is my passion and my vice’.  I would strongly consider trading my wife for a life time supply of good salsa and tortilla chips.  (Love you honey!)  This was a recipe for disaster.

I gotta say, when they plopped down that basket of tortilla chips and gave me my own bowl of salsa, I was tempted.  So very tempted.  I even started the internal negotiation process.  “Well, you already had a bad day, but that was for last week.  You can have another one.  What’s it matter?”

Then I remembered something… the number 17.  As in there are 17 grams of fat per basket of tortilla chips.  Seriously, look at the basket next time and think to your self “17 grams of fat.”  So, I’d like to say that I had no tortilla chips at all, but instead I instituted an old rule.  The 10 Chip rule.  As in when I go to a Mexican place, I can have 10 tortilla chips.  Which is probably 1/4th or 1/5th of a basket.  Not awful, but not great.

Oh, and for the record I only had 7 and everytime I ate one, I repeated to myself “17 grams of fat.”  Also, for the record my meal was chicken mole and I had left rice and beans on my plate.

So honestly, I don’t know how to score that.

Then there was dinner.  I was all set to have my leftover veggies, rice, and noodles from Shogun when I remembered that I had promised to make my wife steak wraps.  Now, normally this wouldn’t be a big thing.  There is about 3-4 oz of steak per wrap.  However, I am trying to perfect my recipe.  I can’t say why, but it’s critical that on Sunday I make the steak wrap of my life.

So I ended up eating maybe 12 oz of steak and some of those veggies.  Again, it’s not perfect, but I honestly can’t say if it’s a bad day.  I didn’t give in to overeating nor did I let food control me, but I’ve certainly done better.  Much better.

On the plus side, I burned 467 calories on Wii Active.  So today wasn’t a total loss.

What do you all think?

Well, I weighed myself this morning.

First, let me say that if you decide to embark on a weight loss journey, the first time you weigh yourself, you should write down how much you weigh.   Seems obvious, doesn’t it?

Sheesh.

So my wife and I conferred and we have the same hundreds digit (sadly).  We then have the same two numbers for the last two digits.  I think it was 89 and she thinks it was 98.

I’m going with me being right, if for no other reason than I don’t want to brag I lost a bunch of weight I didn’t.  And besides, it won’t change the fact I’m now at 80.

So, if I’m right, I lost 9.6 pounds in one week.  If I’m wrong, I lost 18.

Even if I’m wrong, you know, I’ll take it!

Back on track.

Eatingwise, that wasn’t too tough.  I remembered to eat my shredded wheat Fiber One cereal on the way out the door and slipped right into good eating habits.  I even took the boy out to dinner.  I had 3 sushi rolls, a side salad, and a little mushroom soup.  I also ordered some veggies, but I wasn’t even hungry for them.  That is a huge sign and I have a delicious lunch for tomorrow!

Doing the exercise took a bit more pushing.  I really have a love/hate thing going on with my Wii Active right now, but I’m still doing it.  33 minutes, 470 calories.  I don’t know if I trust the measurements, but whatever.  I worked up a nice sweat.  And went yard in baseball like 10 times.

Tomorrow…the scale.  Wish me luck?

Forgive me readers, for I have slacked.  It’s been 3 days since my last post.

A lot of that, quite frankly, has been due to me just feeling like poopy.  Normally, when I have a cold the thing I try to do is hibernate for about 2 days straight and come out feeling better.  I didn’t do that this time for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I wanted to keep working out. 

Which I did.

In fact, from Jan 2 to Jan 9, I worked out non stop.  That’s 8 workouts in a row!  Granted, most of those workouts were 30 minutes on the Wii and not full 1 hour to 90 minute workouts in the gym, but I’m going to give myself a pass since I do have a cold and I still burn about 340-380 per 30 minute workout.  Plus, that’s not bad, right?  30 minutes a day?

However, today I took my first workout day off. Everything I’ve read about working out says that you go 6 days and take the 7th off.  I have found that in general, for my schedule, taking Sundays off works best because of Church and other obligations on my time.  Plus, it allows me uninterrupted writing time on Sunday nights, which I tend to use for writing personal “fun” stuff.  (My novel and non-freelance stuff.)

Today was also my bad meal day, which I somewhat regret and somewhat don’t.  I had planned to muscle through today and save my bad day for next week some time, but my schedule just didn’t facilitate that.  In fact, I only ate twice today.  I had breakfast when I woke up around 11:30 (thanks to my wife for letting me sleep off my cold) and then I had a small 140 calorie snack at around 2:30 because I was HUNGRY.

The plan was for us to have dinner around 4:30 right up until the boy put a small piece of rubber in his nose and I got to take him to the Emergency Room.  By the time I got out, I was starving so when we went to eat a Mongolian BBQ, I decided to go back for another plate.  (Incidentally, the take away is that I need to keep up on eating every two hours and perhaps do a better job of keeping healthy snacks handy.)

The good news is that my bad day is bad in quantity only since a lot of what I ate was vegetables and brown rice, but since one of my aims is to force myself to follow good portion size, the meal was an utter failure.  Fortunately, there was no fried foods, no soda, and minimal unclean carbs.

I own that.  But frankly, the fact I burned at a minimum 2,950 calories last week off cardio alone (not counting weight training) I’ll take it!

Which reminds me….VICTORY DANCE (my friend Rob’s term).  I went 7 days of straight working out and eating well.  That’s one week of my year down!  I’m doing it.

And you know what’s weird?  Food isn’t on my mind ALL THE TIME like I was afraid it would be.  Sure, there are times, especially coming back from the gym when all I can think about is food.  (For instance, there is 1 BBQ restaurant, 4 Italian restaurants, 2 Chinese Places, 1 Panera, 2 Sandwich shops, 1 Mexican Place, 1 Chipotle, 1 Thai restaurant, 1 Japanese Restaurant, 2 Sonics, 1 Popeyes, 1 McDonalds, 1 Mediterranean place, 2 grocery stories, 1 Chilis, 1 Bob Evans, and a Papa Johns on the way home visible from the street…what can I say, on the 3rd I was HUNGRY.)  On the other hand, I am finding that as long as I eat something every 2 hours, I don’t worry about it.

Quick week in review

The hardest moment this week:

When my son asked for a chocolate chip cookie for a snack.  I never knew how good a chocolate chip cookie could smell until that moment.  But I didn’t take one for myself.

The best moment this week:

I thought it was going to be when the button didn’t open up on my shirt last week, but instead I’ll take this week when I had to move a second notch on my belt.  It’s probably only water weight, but who cares?!  Go me!

Okay, here’s to another 7 days of healthy eating.

Oh, and I weigh myself on Tuesday.  I am dying to know how much I’ve lost.

Okay, Day 6 of my reimagining is in the bag and I am not only tired, but hungry!

I am definitely fighting off my son’s cold, but I did go ahead and work out.  I did the Wii Active since I can’t get out of my driveway, ruling out the gym.  378 calories.  Not too shabby.

Internal dialogue was something Rob brought up earlier and I wanted to address it in depth because I think it’s important.

Let’s start at the basics:

What is an Internal Dialogue?

So, I don’t want to belabor the point, but basically your internal dialogue is how you talk to yourself about (and by extension how you think about) your goals and your journey towards completing them.  Basically, are you generally positive/supportive when you think about your journey, are you negative/insulting, or do you lie somewhere in between?

Why Does it Matter?

Your internal dialogue may well determine if you are successful with the changes you want to make to your life.  Why?

Well, as much as I hate to say it, Dr. Phil was right.  About 6 years ago, I had a Dr. Phil calendar that had one weight loss tip per day.  And one of the tips was basically that if you beat yourself up about your weight, you going to stop trying to change it.  Why?  The whole weight loss process becomes so negative that you want to remove yourself from it. 

The problem is, I see overly negative internal dialogues all the time when I talk to people about losing weight.  Some people very close to me get on the scale every day even though they know their weight fluxuates.  Still, if their weight goes up, they freak out and start individually lamenting each dish they ate which might have caused them to put on weight.  It’s sad because they’re hurting emotionally themselves when all they did was gain half a pound.

I’ve seen the same for other goals.  I have friends who see every misstep as a major failure and that is met with wailing and gnashing of teeth.  The human psyche can only take so much beating before it will give up and you will end up abandoning your goals.  (Not good.)

On the hand Dr. (well, not really Dr.) Perrin also thinks that there is a danger in being overly positive.  There is a point where you can be so upbeat that you ignore the obvious problems.  In my experience, this is a far less common issue, but it does happen and can lead people into believing that everything is fine and that their missteps aren’t really missteps, they’re blips or one-time issues and they’ll “do better tomorow.”

The Right Internal Dialogue

So, somewhere between happy-happy-joy-joy and I-am-a-total-loser is where I believe the  proper internal dialogue lies.  I guess I would call it “firm, but fair.”

I danced around this issue some when I was talking about Self-Assessment when I said that I had to be honest with myself and list everything that I wanted to change and that I couldn’t flinch or ignore my faults.  I also said that I had to forgive myself at the end of that assessment and realize that I was basically a good person even if I had things I wanted to change.  I was firm with myself, but at the same time I didn’t overaccentuate the negative and I was generally positive about my potential to achieve my goals and stick with it.

Let’s look at another example.  Person A (who is a guy since I’m a guy) wants to lose weight, but for whatever reason decides to have a really extravagant meal.  (I’m jonsing for Mexican, so let’s use that as an example.)  Person A has a margarita, all the chips he wants, cheese dip, a chimicanga with beef and cheese sauce, and fried ice cream for dessert.  (Told you, I am jonsing for Mexican.)  Let’s also assume that this happens outside of the rules of his diet that he set.  (In other words, it’s not his bad meal.)

So, someone with a negative internal dialogue thinks: “I am such a loser.  Why the [bleep] did I do that?  Why can’t I lose weight?  I’m such a bad person.”  A person with a positive internal dialogue might think the opposite: “Eh, it’s okay.  It’s not a problem because it’s just one meal.  I’ll do better next time.”

Neither of these viewpoints are right, in my opinion.  First, Person A is not a loser.  Nor is Person A a bad person.  In the grand scheme of things, that meal hasn’t sealed his fate.  He can still hit the gym and work the meal off.  It’ll be okay.  On the other hand, to dismiss that it happened with a simple shrug isn’t so great either because he did do something which is counter to his goals. 

My prefered internal dialogue is to think of this as a (here it comes) a teachable moment.  Every misstep is a chance to get better.  When I give in to overeating like Person A, what I try to do is pause and understand the conditions which drove me to eat that meal.  I know I’m an emotional eater and when I emotionally eat, I try to find out the conditions which stressed me out and recognize them.  I may not be able to keep them from happening again, but hopefully I can sense that they are happening and try to channel the stress towards something other than eating.

I hope that makes sense and I don’t sound like a jerk.  I just don’t want you to beat yourself up and when the missteps happen (and they will) I want you to take them just seriously enough that you eventually learn not to make them again.  That’s all anyone can ask.

Celebrate Good Times

Point of order!  No matter your internal dialogue, don’t forget to celebrate.  In fact, celebrate like we celebrate my son’s accomplishments.  What does that mean?

My son can spell one word: his name and he’s done it like 500 times.  Still, we want him to learn to read and write so ever ytime he spells his name, we party like it’s 1999.

Do that.  Feel free to overcelebrate.  Today, when I didn’t cram down the BBQ and fries when I wanted to, I told Twitter.  I wanted those accolades because I did something big and I deserved it.

You do the same.  That’s an order!

Day 5 of the my reimagining and things seem to be moving along better than expected.

Major developments today:

1.  I put on a collared shirt with buttons and didn’t have any problems with it!!

Now, unless your an overweight male with a big tummy, you may not know what problems I’m talking about.  But sometimes having a large stomach can open the buttons around the midsection.  It’s kind of embarrassing.   But it didn’t happen to me today.  Aww yeah!

2.  I went to the next notch on my belt

Okay, so it wasn’t but a week or so ago that I had to loosen my belt, but hey, progress is being made!

3.  I didn’t pig out

As I shared on Twitter earlier, we ordered BBQ for lunch at work today.  Items not consumed: fries, beef.  Items consumed: turkey, grilled veggies.  Reasons for not eating the fries: I didn’t want to blog that I had fallen off the wagon.  Awww yeah!

4.  I worked out

Okay, so that’s not so weird … except … I’ve been feeling kind of under the weather.  My son has bronchitis and perhaps the flu or RSV or something else and I think I’m fighting it off.  Plus, I got like 4 hous of sleep, but it didn’ t matter.  I worked out. 

I used the Wii Active for 30 minutes so it wasn’t a super gym workout, but I did burn 370 calories.  So I’ll take it.

Where does that leave me?

Better than the last couple of times I’ve said I was going to lose weight and I owe it to you who read these words.  I’m keeping my promise!

I…uh…promise!

Okay, I’m exhausted, but I wanted to report in.  I’ve been to the gym four days in a row.

Saturday was chest day
Sunday I tried the Wii Active
Monday was leg day
Tonight was arms

As I said before, I’m tired.  Very, very tired.

I’ll review the Wii Active, but I want to use it a few more times.  For now I can say my legs seem to be weirdly shaped because the leg holder just likes to slip.

Now, also, I may be crazy, but I’ll be darned if my pants are looser.  Maybe I’m crazy.

Good night!