Wii Fit vs. The Scale

Get ready folks, I'm about to get technical on your ass!

Ok, so maybe not so much. At any rate, this is about to be probably one of the most useful blog entries I've ever provided to mankind, so put your spectacles on and fasten your seatbelt.

Alright, so I'm a little excited about this entry, give me a break.

For those that don't know, which is probably everyone except for Amanda, I am trying to lose weight. Big deal, right? Like who isn't trying to lose weight. Granted, I've been working on this for...well basically 75% of my life, things actually seem to be going right. That's right, I've dropped a few pounds (now available for adoption if you wish). Anyway, the point of this entry is not to talk about my weight loss, believe it or not. It's actually for me to present to you my somewhat extended knowledge on the Wii Fit. I know, you're impressed. I actually had sources and everything, but I accidentally shut my computer down before saving them, so I'm going to do half of this from memory. Now you really are impressed, aren't you? ;)

Ok, so first I'm going to discuss the Wii Fit. There's been a lot of debate among many people as to whether or not it will actually help you lose weight. I can't testify to it's effectiveness in this aspect as I've only exercised with it a handful of times. I can tell you that it actually got my heart rate up, got me sweating, and made me sore. It all depends on how long you do it, the intensity you do it at, and which exercises you do. For instance, I find the yoga section to be AMAZING. I love it, and I f***ing hate yoga. The hoola hoop game is another favorite of mine. At any rate, in my opinion, it is better than nothing and a fun alternative to usual workouts. I wouldn't recommend using the Wii Fit alone, but it gets you off the couch.

That said, after using the Wii Fit several times and doing the body tests, I began to wonder how accurate the Wii Fit is as a scale. So this doesn't become extremely confusing, I'm going public with my weight. AHH! Ok, so when I started using the Fit, I was at a whopping 179 pounds. I don't remember for certain, but I think our scale said about the same thing, maybe a pound or two difference. That was a little over a month ago. Last week I weighed myself again on the Fit, and suddenly it said I'd dropped down to 164 pounds (holy crap!). Shocked, because the week before I was down to 172, this seemed to be too good to be true. I went upstairs and weighed myself on our digital scale, and that read I think 174. So...I did some research.

If used properly, the Wii Fit can actually be frighteningly accurate. Someone stated it's accuracy as being down to 1/10 of a pound. How they know this, I'm not sure. It was on a yahoo question thing. I tried doing some research on the Wii website, and found nothing about accuracy or anything. I'm thinking about writing an email in. I'm curious to know how it measures the weight. I read that the sensors are highly, get this, sensitive, and that's how it's so accurate, but I'd like to hear some more technical things from Nintendo. Anyway, if the Fit is on a hard surface, it should be accurate. I've been using it on a carpet. This is a problem, but only if you are not using the extensions that came with the Fit. I have been using them. So...if I'm using the extensions on a carpet, it should be accurate, yet there is a huge difference from the scale and the Fit now. So what's going on? Which one is right?

If you think like me, then you would research the accuracy of digital scales next. I was always under the impression that because a scale is digital, it is probably more accurate. This isn't actually the case. I've never actually tried it, but if you weigh yourself on a digital scale three times in a row, it wouldn't be unusual for there to be a 3 pound difference. Even though it balances before you step on, shifting your weight and standing on it oddly or on a surface that isn't completely flat can mess up the scale. Dial scales are actually much more accurate, but nothing beats the scale at the doctor.

So...now I've learned that both can be inaccurate, but one can be scarily accurate, so which one do I believe? Well right now I'm not going to worry about it. The measurement around the waist is actually more important than the weight. Next time I weigh myself on the Fit I'm going to bring a board up to put it on so it's on a flat surface. This should take care of any problems. I'm also going to find our dial scale and weigh myself on there, and compare the three of them, so there will be another blog about this hopefully within the next week. :) Eventually I'll also blog about my weight loss progress and what I'm doing to lose weight.

Oh, and for anyone wondering, the BMI from the Fit is only accurate for the average person. It calculates the BMI from your height and weight. So someone who is 5'5" and 200lbs due to fat vs. someone who is 5'5" and 200lbs due to muscle will both have the same BMI from the Fit because it doesn't take into account your body type. If you are the average person and not some super athlete, it should be fairly accurate.

Poems: Goodnight & Mowing the Lawn

So I went to sit out on our front step this evening, sipped on a vodka cranberry listening to some music and watching the sun set (or what I could see of it) while I wrote some poems. The first few were kind of angry poems. This one is more...happy, so I'm sharing this one. haha It's shorter than I'd like though, so...I consider this to be unfinished.

"Goodnight"
A cloudy day.
The sun sets between the branches,
kissing each leaf goodnight.
The rabbit hops through emeralds,
to her domain where
she says her prayers
and goodnight.
The moon peaks up
from behind the roof of the house
where mama and papa
tuck Jimmy in
and wish him a
goodnight.

And since that was way shorter than I was thinking it would be, here is another more...fun poem.

"Mowing the Lawn"
Back and forth
Back and forth
Left and right
Side to side
Diagonal
Criss-cross
Right angle
Up and down
Side by side
Go around
Curveways
Sideways
Slantways
Mow the lawn
so short it stays.

Old Poem #1

And now, for something completely different!

This is a poem I wrote...two years ago. Almost. It's untitled in my journal. I was thinking of titling it "The Beast". I haven't edited it at all from when I wrote it (other than adding two words).

Again, I am a lost cause.
I can feel your disappointment linger over my shoulder.
It is cold, cruel and heartless.
Its leathery wings beat the backside of my head.
Again, I have failed,
and already I can anticipate my worthlessness to you. To it.
It stares me down until I coward into a corner,
crying until I can not breathe,
and no intelligible word can be uttered by my mouth.
Again, I will try,
even with failure in the back of my mind.
I starve for perfection.
Success.
Because of the disappointment I fear
I can not quit.
I will not quit.
I will face the beast
and take its beating
until it is pleased by my achievements.

Cubicle

I am told I have to write a poem about a cubicle and it has to be done today. Amanda is ordering me to do this, but this is mostly my fault because I think I may have been the one to suggest we both write a poem about cubicles and post them on our blogs. Being that I don't feel like writing it right how, it's probably going to suck. Although I'm not sure how great of a poem I could write about a cubicle anyway.

Cube-
icle.
You are
so fickle.
Furry walls,
that tickle,
provide space
to stickle
uninterrupted,
therefore ideas trickle.
A penny for my thoughts,
or maybe a nickel.
Damn,
I love dill pickle.
And you too,
cube-icle.

There. That is my poem about a cubicle. Viola!

101 Update

So since I made my 101 things list, I've actually started working on some of those things and accomplished others. Too bad I'm feeling so lazy today or I could really get started on some writing or something. Perhaps I'll go sit outside and write for awhile once I finish this entry.

On Friday, my friend Amanda came over and we made some pizza and watched Fargo. I didn't know anything about the movie beforehand other than there would be some heavy Minnesotan accents. Overall I liked the movie (can't believe it's already 13 years old!) but found the accents annoying. NO ONE that lives in Minneapolis speaks with such a heavy accent. NO ONE. There are people in the more northern areas of Minnesota that talk like that, but even there it's not as prevalent. They definitely went a little over board on the accent. Also, Amanda and I could not figure our why the movie was even called Fargo when it all occurred in Minnesota. The only time Fargo was involved was in the beginning. Apparently Brainerd just didn't have the same ring to it? According to Wikipedia, the Coen brothers didn't think so. (also read the section above that--it's also kind of interesting) Anyway, point of this whole story was that this was one of the things on Amanda's list, so this completed #3 on my list (although I still would like to help/be a part of things from people's lists!).

I am also in the process of learning new songs for the piano (more on that later) and today I started memorizing a piece (#24). I actually feel like I'm kind of cheating, but...it's my list and I say this qualifies. I actually had this piece memorized at one point in my life when I was taking piano lessons. I had to memorize it for a recital. The piece is Rhapsodie by Maxwell Eckstein and it's 5 pages long. The first page is fairly simple and repeats some, so I'm already about halfway through the second page. It's a little shaky and slow with a few wrong notes here and there (or some peaking), but for only playing for about 30-40 minutes today, I'd say that's pretty good. It's frustrating though because my memory sucks. There is also a very difficult section in here that I have a hard time playing looking, so I'm not looking forward to memorizing that. I can't believe I actually memorized this whole thing at one time. It is one of my favorite pieces to play though, so I guess that probably made it easier. Once I have it completely memorized, I will set up a camera, record it and post it on here. Also, while learning the new music, I realized I've sort of forgotten how to read music, which...sucks. So the learning new music thing is going kind of slow. I will get it eventually though. It's just taking some counting, math and penciling in on the music. I just have very little patience when it comes to music. I just want to be able to play it on the first try perfectly and at the right tempo.

As for the rest of the list, I hope to start working on my scrapbooking sometime this week after work. I'm also thinking about going grocery shopping for my mom later this week if she still hasn't gone. Maybe I will start thinking about which collection of mine to purge. I feel like getting rid of one right now would really help release some sort of...something and make me relax a little, if that makes ANY sense.