Being a Teenager and Self-Piercing

I grew up in America and there seemed to be an age where everyone was poking themselves left and right. When I was younger, it was all about bellybuttons and earlobes. I think most needle-pierced earlobes come out alright (better than the gun) but all those teenage bellybutton rings were disastrous . As we got older, we’d dare each other to do more wacky stuff like liprings. Anyway, a couple years ago in a psychology course, I remember a discussion about how most cultures have a “coming of age” ritual for yougsters that generally comes at the age of 13-16. We read about walkabouts, ceremonial piercings and tattoos, bar mitzvahs … etc. And I was thinking, maybe we have self-piercing in our culture as a coming of age thing too. It has some of the same elements as other cultures. It’s daring, slightly traumatizing, exciting, sometimes permanent changes. The only thing missing is that the adults in our culture don’t guide the teens through it. Anyway, just food for thought.

PS – I think teenagers piercings themselves or their friends is generally a pretty stupid thing to do, but it still happens. I don’t condone it.

PSS – Another thing to think about is the originators of piercings, which I assume are tribal nations. I’m sure they basically self pierced or pierced each other as there were no professionals in those days.

My Preliminary Review of Wii Fit Plus

I’ve never used the original Wii Fit, so this was my first experience with the system. Overall I’m pretty happy with it, and I think it’s a great tool for losing weight. It’s as addictive as World of Warcraft in the sense that you spend as much time on it so you can “win”. Forms of winning to me are getting the 30 minutes of workout a day mark, seeing my BMI go down, and getting my trainer to say: “You’re pretty strong, arent you?” I do spend about 30 minutes a day on it, with some off days, but the real magic is when you see a tasty snack, and immediately dismiss it because you have that line chart of your BMI in your brain and you wouldn’t want it to spike. The biggest benefit of Wii Fit Plus is the psychological element, otherwise we could all just go for a run, right?

Now I’ll do some mini reviews of the different features in Wii Fit Plus:

Starting Off – When you get weighed, you get a center of balance graph, your BMI, and you can also do some balance games for your Wii Fit age. I’m convinced the Wii Fit Age and the balance games are just filler. The great part is that they let you skip it. It doesn’t really add much to your workout plus my age fluctuates from 20 to 75 randomly.

Center of balance is pretty useless as well, in my opinion.

Balance Games - These are alright. They help with reflexes, but more than anything, these games provide lots of examples to why the Balance board isn’t even nearly perfected. I think it should’ve been called a Fit Board and throw out all the balance crap. The balance games make me frustrated at the hardware rather than motivate me to do better. The only ones I like are tilt city* and lotus focus. I rarely do them though, because I don’t get a real workout from them. It’s all about the calories.  (Turns out Tilt City is in Training Plus, not Balance)

Yoga - I LOVE Sun Salutation on the Fit Board (That’s what I’m calling it from now on.. screw balance!) but alot of the more advanced yoga positions seem wrong when compared to what my yoga/aerobics trainer taught me. I did it the way my Wii Trainer did it and severely strained my back … no thanks. There are a few good poses here, but this is not one of the fit board’s strengths. I also think you should NOT buy this system for the yoga. A simple local yoga class would be more affordable and more accurate. Heck, even a DVD might be better than this. I do enjoy doing some of the yoga poses I already know sprinkled through my workouts. They help me mentally and are enjoyable when your muscles are sore.

Strength Training - Perfection, perfection, perfection. Jackknifes, planks, lunges, tricep extensions, I love it all. My goal was to actually lose weight, but when I saw the drastic change the strength training did to my body, I decided what the heck. Keep in mind that when you develop good muscle mass, it requires more calories to be sedentary, in other words, with good muscle mass, you burn more calories ALL the time. Other than that, these exercises generally are set up in unique and creative ways with the Board and controller. I use this attachable weight for my tricep extensions.

The “Biggest Loser” kit came with some pretty worthless stuff, but the dumbbells and the wrist weights come in handy to intensify workouts. Here are the wrist weights:

Here’s another tip, when you do planks or any other exercise that requires you to put your hands directly on the Fit Board, put a blanket or pillow between your hands and the board, so they feel more comfy. Before I figured this out, I couldn’t keep up with my trainer because my palms were incredibly sore.

Aerobics – This is another strength of the Wii Fit Plus system. All these games are pretty fun, although some like Stepping seem a bit low-activity for aerobics. Both the hula hoop games are great, especially if you are competing with a family member for the high score. Be thankful you’re not in my family or you’d have to catch up to over 1000 spins. Face it, you can’t touch this. Running seems a bit boring, Island Cycling is much better (more on that later.) Rhythm boxing is a good exercise, although I hate how I waste half the time trying to quickly memorize a pattern. I have unlocked the advanced version, and the only difference is that the patterns are more complicated. I don’t really get a better workout (except for my brain.)

Training Plus –  This is a great section. You can definitely tell the games are newer and they improved ideas from the other sections. Island cycling is a great calorie burning exercise. It’s not as boring as a run, and it seems that your stepping speed directly affects the characters speed. Skateboard Arena is another great game. I definitely break a sweat trying to get all the points. It feels like a skateboard and once again, the interaction between the board and the game is realistic. Big top juggling is fun, challenging, but I’m not completely convinced of it’s calorie burning potential. It’s more of a balance game with upper body movement.

And to finish off, I’ll say that I like the locker room area where you combine workouts and choose exercises based on your needs. (Leaner, Figure, Arms … etc) The workout combination system is primitive. For example I can’t select to do Lunges with a higher rep count, even though I’ve unlocked it.

In the end, Wii Fit Plus is fun, useful, and it does work to help you lose weight or build muscle if you stick to it. I think it’s for people that need a boost of motivation and like video games.

I personally have lost almost 5 lbs. Also, I drink more water, avoid snacks and sweets, I abhor soda all of a sudden, and feel more active overall. I’ve gained a good amount of muscle mass in my arms (They’re still sore from 2 days ago) my legs and my abdominals. Keep in mind that I lost about 10 pounds with Aerobics, and then I started strength training where I gained weight. So, I’m not really sure how much fat weight I actually lost and how much muscle I gained. I definitely feel better, and my arms are much harder and leaner.

xoxo

Noemi