Nutwiisystem Information 4

Wii Fitness on the Road: Traveling with the Wii

lunch at the desert botanical garden in phoenix arizonaSo, I’m writing this from 2500 miles away from home and 35,374 feet in the air. My company sent me on a business trip to Phoenix, Arizona. Believe you me, it was tough spending the week away from the 6 degrees (yes, it was 6 degrees when I left) and 19 inches of snow in New York to come to the 73 degree sunshine in Phoenix, but I manged to survive.

I haven’t started my Nutrisystem yet (I will when I get home), but I started the week trying to eat healthy. Here’s a picture of me ordering a veggie wrap at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. As far as veggie wraps go, this one was phenomenal. It had mashed sweet potatoes, avocados, onions, and I think a little potato salad. It was really tasty, I wish I had asked them for the recipe.

Now business trips are always dangerous for my waistline. I always end up eating all kinds of junk, and if I have an exercise routine going, it usually throws me way off. Not this time, I told myself. So I decided to haul my Wii with me on the trip so I could keep up on my 9-week program.

For all the talk of how Sony or Microsoft’s new game systems are going to take over the world, this is yet another point in the Wii’s favor. It’s very easy to lug around. I can’t imagine hauling a heavy appliance like the Xbox or the PS3, but with the Wii, I just threw it in a padded bag and put it in my checked bag. No fuss, no muss (TSA regulations do say you need to take it out separately, like a laptop, if you’re carrying it on).

I made a list of things I had to pack. They are:

1) The Wii
2) The power adapter
3) The video cable (you need to check with your hotel to make sure they have a TV that can accept audio-video inputs–thankfully my Holiday Inn Express did)
4) One Wii Remote
5) The EA Sports Active Resistance Band
6) The Sensor Bar

That’s it. It didn’t add too much extra weight (whatever weight it did add I just considered strength training for the trip :)).

It was a snap to set up at the hotel. I stayed at my favorite Holiday Inn Express (located at 3131 Scottsdale Road in Scottsdale, AZ), and they had new LCD TV’s with audio/video connectors in the back. All I had to do was plug everything in, re-configure the Wii sensor for above the TV versus below, and I was set to go.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the Wii connected to the hotel Internet because the hotel’s Internet has a screen where you have to accept terms and conditions on a Web page before proceeding. But the Wii’s Internet Channel is designed in an annoying way where you can never get to the screen to accept the terms and conditions, so it just kicks you off. Hopefully Nintendo will fix this in an update to their Internet channel, but I’m not holding my breath. In any case, for those in the NutWiiSys Exercise Group, rest assured that I’m still plugging away! Hopefully my numbers will update as soon as I plug in when I get home.

So, for the week, I got three of my four workouts in. I put a bath towel or two on the floor to do the floor exercises. Being on the third floor, I was a little afraid that “foot fires” were going to make too much noise for the folks downstairs or send me crashing through the floor, but happily neither happened.

I was a little burned when I did my Tuesday exercise. I finished the exercise at about 10:00 PM. To my dismay, after I finished the exercise, EA Sports Active 2 told me that I hadn’t done my Tuesday exercise at all. Turns out when I finished the exercise, it was already past midnight, so my exercise counted towards Wednesday (which was normally a rest day). Maddeningly, I didn’t have any option to go back and have the exercise count towards Tuesday. Which means I’ll need to make up Tuesday later on in order for the system to know that I “finished” my 9-week program. Oh well, I guess I can spare one “free” exercise, but hopefully EA Sports will fix the very limited control you have over workouts (I actually remember it being much more flexible in Sports Active 1).

Anyway, I think overall it was a positive experience travelling with the Wii. I ended the week on a rather unhealthy note–the Holiday Inn Express breakfast buffet is truly sumptuous–today before my flight home I had bacon, an omelet, a biscuit with gravy, cranberry juice, and a banana…I figured I may as well treat myself to one last bad meal before the Nutrisystem starts as soon as I get home (I won’t have a choice, because I completely cleared out my fridge before my trip!)

UPDATE: I wrote the above from the plane and never got a chance to publish it. Right I’m now typing this from West Palm Beach, Florida. Turns out I had two days at home before they shipped me out again for business. Now before those of you in more frigid temperatures start throwing shoes at me, bear in mind that while I am technically sitting in a Club Med, the room is stiflingly hot and the air conditioning is not working. Although I gotta say, the food is good. Too good.

In any case, I’ll be flying home tomorrow and have a lot of EA Sports Active workouts to make up. And I will make them up, I promise! And I will start the Nutrisystem too. Because there are no more business trips coming up for a while. 😛

4 Comments

  • Reply
    Robin H.
    Feb 04, 2011 10:08 am

    YES, I’M THROWING MY SNOW COVERED BOOTS AND PANTS AT YOU. I see that you are keep up the good work. Since I’ve been snowed in I haven’t. and I was losing weight too. I’ve been eating whatever is in the fridge and not doing any of my workouts. So I will get back on track this week.

  • Reply
    Robin H.
    Feb 04, 2011 10:11 am

    P.S. Have you gotten Micheal Jackson yet? I am interested in getting that game since I am a MJ fan. Also so Just Dance 2, how is the downloadable content and songs?

  • Reply
    observer
    Feb 05, 2011 8:48 am

    You haven’t said “Sorry for my ugly hand”. ;-)))

  • Reply
    DbqHams
    Feb 07, 2011 1:52 pm

    Nice job keeping up the workout. In in phase 2 and so far I’ve missed only 2 workouts. But I ran into the ‘over midnight’ issue a few weeks ago. I finished the workout late at night and tried to squeeze it in before midnight, but ended up back at the main screen at 12:01. And just like you, it didn’t count my workout for the specific day. I ended up having 2 workouts on that day after working out the following night.

    I have gone back to do “missed workouts” but I’m still not sure how they are being counted in the program. At least you get credit for it in the EA Online Group.

    Keep up the good work.

    DBQ

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