Bathers, Biggest Losers, and Bloggers.

Today's post begins with a picture. Except for that last sentence. And that one. Oh fuck it. Here's the picture:Hardly worth the build up really. But as you may have guessed, this blog entry is coming to you directly from my bath. Please notice the beautifully tiled floor (and refrain from trying to figure out where my boobs are - I couldn't quite figure that out either). That's how I imagine the tiling project I started over a year ago would look if I ever decided to finish it. I mean, I did most of the house to look like that. But I got as far as the bathroom and decided it was just far too much work. And now all I have is a slightly dinted concrete floor.

But that's not what I'm here to write about. I'm blogging from my bath because I am trying to figure out how to enjoy bathing. Don't get me wrong. I like to be clean. Love a nice long hot shower. But I can't quite seem to get in to the swing of a relaxing soak in the tub. I think I get swept up in the hype of it because everyone else enjoys it. And I find myself looking forward to winding down amid candles and warm water. But by the time my whole body is wet, I'm clammy and bored, and just itching to get in the shower and get to bed.

Tonight I am determined to stay. Despite the fact that my stupily long pinky finger-nail keeps hitting shift and up before enter - effectively deleting the last line of every paragraph and making me write it again (damn you Blogspot - get an 'undo' button). We can only hope that by the end of this entry I have either begun to enjoy having a bath, or at the very least, refrained from electrocuting myself.

I bought a new game today. I've been considering blogging about it all day, but have refrained for fear of looking any more nerdy, and turning this blog into a games review page. But I am still not yet enjoying this bath (possibly due to the fact that I am now leaning half out of the bath to avoid getting the lap top wet). So I will fill you in.

I am trying, amid the mountains of chocolate easter bunnies and the mandatory morning coffee (which upon returning to work has turned into 'coffees') to take up some kinda health kick again. I'm not quite sure why. It had no obvious benefit to me when I tried it this January and February and part of March. I got no slimmer, was just as tired, and was, for the most part, just more hungry and irritable. But people seem to swear by this whole being healthy thing, and as the child won't let me take up smoking again I figure I may as well start swinging the complete opposite direction.

I bought a whole heap of frozen weightwatchers type meals. They taste like shit. But they work, cos they make you feel too guilty to cook more food... And back to the point - I also bought the Wii Active upgrade and began their 6 week challenge. This game is pretty good I reckon and now comes with some warm up and warm down sessions. But on to the retarded game:

I decided to buy my friend the Wii Active upgrade and found that it was on a buy one game get one free deal at EB games. So I scanned and scanned their (minimal) selection of Wii games and settled on the Biggest Loser game. I figured what the hell - with the deal it was essentially $20 worth of game. It boasted a huge selection of workouts, but with the added benefit of Jillian and the other Yanky trainer guy's motivation. It also has a section of recipes which come with a calorie count (so that might be useful - although i have cooked from the website before and it tasted terrible). The last feature it offered was the use of the Wii Balance board to weigh you and determine the apropriate amount of calories you should be taking in each day (in relation to the workout it had set for you).

This last feature was the seller for me and I raced home to try out the game (that's a lie - I stayed out for a few more hours shopping with said friend but 'raced home' sounds a little better). I was happy to find, firstly, that I weighed a kg less than yesterday. Or maybe it was because I took my shoes off. I was also pleased to find I had a good 1300 odd calories to play with each day (although I had no idea what that meant). I played around with some websites to add up the calories I had taken in today, and was estatic to find that despite it being after dinner I was still a good 600 calories to eat today. Woot. Chocolate Easter Bunny for desert!

The actual game began by creating an avatar for me. I had no choice in the matter - after putting in my 54kg of weight I was given a 200kg avatar. Ok. I can deal with this. I'll just imagine the real me is inside this exoskeleton much like the alien inside the alien on tonight's movie - Independence Day. Then it turns out it doesn't matter any way - the only time you get a glimpse of your avatar is when Jillian gets her fat arse out of the way and you sneak a peak of yourself working out in the background.

So, the work out begins. And they are pretty simple steps which work ok to get your heart pumping. Side steps. Squats. Star jumps. Pushups. One excercise on the wii balance board, one off. I can handle this. I'm watching the calorie count go up and hoping that the game will get more and more enjoyable as I burn some more calories. I'm waiting for music to begin. Or a bit of encouragement from Jillian. "You're a star", "Keep it up!" Nothing. All I've got is elevator music and Jillian saying (every second or third or even fourth rep) "Up." "Down." But I persevered as the picture of the wii balance board kept telling me "perfect" "perfect" as I repped to the beat of the vibrating wiimote. At least I was doing the workout right. Or was I? An itchy nose and I was off beat. "Perfect". A pause for a second to get a glimpse of whether my avatar was doing the workout correctly. "Perfect". I completely stop to have a drink. "Perfect". Sitting on the couch eating the chocolate bunny calories I'd been granted. "Perfect." "Perfect." "Perfect." Stuff this. I exited the game after two circuits (she was ready to put me through more, but who knew how many and I was about to fall asleep mid star jump). I was, however, happy to note that the game congratulated me on completing a whole workout.

Don't get me wrong. I love being bored to death while I work out, especially when working out isn't really my favourite thing to do. I just would have thought that a fitness game designed for morbidly obese people might have a few less ways to cheat. I'm just saying that encouraging me to eat more and then letting me watch someone else's slow paced mundane workout might not help me lose any weight. But what would I know. I'm no holder of two personal training certificates.

So, the story ends like this. I gave Jillian the flick. I ate the rest of my chocolate bunny, and hung out with my awesome new Wii Active trainer for half an hour. I danced, sweated and enjoyed my workout, and decided to 'reward' my efforts with a nice long bath. And here we are back at the start. I'll admit that I didn't last in the bath for the whole blog. But then I write a fair amount of stupid stuff which needs deleting and rewording, so I figured 2 hours in the bath might be a little crazy. I stayed just long enough to put more hot water in three times, and prune up ever so slightly. I also stayed long enough to realise that baths should be left to the lovers of baths just as the Biggest Loser should just be left to the losers.