February 6, 2010
I win at walking.
With the idea that my body will soon be something that, perhaps, I don’t despise to the very core of my being, I have started thinking that, maybe, I need to take care of myself a little. Granted, I’m not going to go all crazy with it. I can balance, say, the health benefits of not enjoying candy now and again versus the benefits of doing so, and doing so wins out every time. I’m going to drink my caffeine drinks and eat what I want. Going without just doesn’t seem like a good plan.
Still, my body is now something I may want to keep, so I have started looking into maintenance, like exercise. I am too crazy busy to go to a gym or whatever. The thought of making time for that just makes me depressed. I looked for other, lower-impact solutions, and I ended up picking up Personal Trainer: Walking, the most X-treem walking game you’ve ever seen for your Nintendo DS.
Okay, so it’s not really very X-treem. It’s full of that kind of mostly bullshit Japanese philosophy about things you see in stuff like Brain Age. Apparently I’m walking so that I can have a proper “life rhythm.” Yeah. Okay. Sure. You also do things like put stamps on a calendar and get your life rhythm measured every day. (Mine tends to be Evening Horse style, apparently.) None of that is very useful.
Also, it’s not a game in any way. It’s mostly a program for tracking data over time and giving you little goals. These goals are kind of silly, too. I think my daily “mini target” is to “make a comfortable, friendly environment for those around me.” Yay? Really useful in keeping you walking and stuff, huh?
But again, that’s not the point. The point is that the activity meter that you just keep loose in your pocket keeps a fairly active count of your steps as you move around and exercise. It keeps track of active periods and calm periods, and it has a little LED on it. If it’s red, you haven’t met your daily step goal. If it’s green, you have. I actually like this vagueness. It keeps me going longer than when I hit green, because I don’t know how much more I have to walk. I currently have my goal set to 5,000 steps, but you can set it to whatever you want in the game, or have to set it to your average steps over a long period of time.
The game comes with two activity meters, so you can compete with a friend or significant other or something. I gave the other one to my Mom. Talking to her about it seems to have spurred her to be more active, too, so that’s good. Of course, I’m doing a lot more than her.
I really like Personal Trainer: Walking. It’s giving me a reason to walk more, and I’ve been doing so, walking while reading assignments, always taking the stairs, and so on. That’s a good thing. It’s not going to get me super-healthy, but at least I’m doing a bit better than I was. For the cost, I very much recommend it. Combine it with a Pokewalker when Heart Gold and Soul Silver comes out, as I plan to, and you have some serious Watts you’ll be earing, let me tell you!