Personal Trainer Coach: Walking

Every week or so you consecutively make your step target on the Personal Trainer: Walking game for the Nintendo DS, you get an option to increase your walking target by another 1,000 steps.. I was putting it off for a week or so but finally gave in the other night to increasing it to 7,000.

I was able to get my target during my morning "Walk it Out" session..


My total active time was 74minutes (while I was doing the "Walk it Out" on the wii) My steps are still being recording by the activity meter while I do some housework, run some errands or check the mail.. Knowing I have my step target taken care of already, relaxes me just a bit and gives me once less thing to think about..

best results to date..

best results to date.., originally uploaded by meekorouse.

Scores for this morning's Walk it Out session.. Doubt I'll walk that many any time soon.. it was mostly an accident..

Walk it Out Rainbow

Walk it Out Rainbow, originally uploaded by meekorouse.

One of the features the Nintendo Wii game "Walk it Out" has are free spheres you can collect while walking to make a daily rainbow. SeanYoda actually collected all his color spheres on his first time out on the game today,

No, it's not a double rainbow.. but it's still neat!

Daytime Lion

along with regular walking I've been doing the "Walk it Out" game for the wii but carrying the exercise meter in my pocket to keep track of my activity time.

A couple days ago my "Personal Trainer: Walking" target was increased from 3,000 to 4,000. I did some housecleaning this morning along with some walking in place so I was able to get my 4000 step target by 10am.

After lunch I played "Walk it Out" which is like the wii fit meets the Sims: You walk in place for points, the points in turn can unlock routes on a virtual island, music tracks that you can later play while you walk, trees, streetlights & bridges. The steps on the wii game differ from my steps counted on the exercise meter, another reason to keep the meter in my pocket when I'm playing.

I got hungry for dinner earlier.. I only had 10 points plus left for the day without getting into the weekly allowance. I ended up picking up a turkey & ham salad from Ray's Old Bank Market. I asked for no cheese & dressing on the side:

It came with a little avocado which was easily removed. I picked the olives out as well. I would say it had about 2 olives worth of sliced black olives but I wanted the salad to be as low point as possible. I left the artichoke hearts (there was only 2 pieces) and the meat I guessed at 3oz/2oz of Boar's Head brand meat respectively.. (I'm pretty sure I over-estimated) I measured the dressing which was 1/4cup exactly.

Along with some Fiber One bars, I'm pretty full a couple hours later. Yay!

End of Week 3

Monday means weigh in day.. I'm having scale issues. The wii fit and the bathroom scale are NOT in agreement, but I'll default to the scale (which weighs me a little different every time).

01/24/11: 214 lbs.
01/17/11: 215 lbs
01/03/11: 220 lbs (start weight)

So officially a difference of one pound (or 6 overall since starting). The wii fit says I weigh about 211.. so.. who knows? I guess I was expecting a better outcome because of the walking I did yesterday. When we got back last night I checked in with the "Personal Trainer: Walking" game on our Nintendo DS.

Personal Trainer: Walking



The "Personal Trainer: Walking" game for the DS comes with 2 'exercise meters' and the game which can record up to 4 exercise meters.. (you have to buy the extras separately but we don't need more than 2).

The Exercise Meter is about the size of a pedometer but doesn't have a counter on the outside. It looks more like a keyfob remote and uses a larger size watch-style battery (CR2032). After carrying around the meter in my pocket all day, I get our Nintendo DS to check my record for the day..

Once the little meter 'drops down' into the screen it saves the record and then goes over the findings.. showing the segments of activity and counting up the steps. The whole process takes 2 or 3 minutes.

After it totals up your steps, it assigns your walking to an 'animal type' like daytime koala or daytime sheep.. Sean got "daytime deer" once and yesterday we both got "daytime horse" (that being we walked mostly in the day and our style of walking "was like a horse.. covering large distances with short periods of rest" =)

Here's what my screen looked like:

total steps for yesterday was 15,586.. not as much as I'd like for a day at the park.. but.. *shrug* I know I didn't walk as much as I would if I were hanging out at the park by myself & not riding several attractions. It's a pretty good average though for being at Disneyland, (I'm expecting my count to go up considerably when we're at Disney World later this year) and I had fun visiting with friends. =)

Afterward it has you choose a stamp for what kind of day you had and gives you a new mini goal (along with the standard 3,000 step goal).

It's basically a fancy pedometer, except for whatever reason I haven't had a lot of luck with the regular pedometers. They either don't count my steps in my pocket or 'refresh' themselves in my pocket. When they're on my belt they count when I'm not walking or they fall off my waistband, (or worse they fall off & I don't notice). So far I'm liking it and having fun with it. As you walk there's supposedly games you can unlock but I haven't explored that yet: perhaps another time.

steps for 1/24: 4638

Keeping Active

One of my 2011 goals is to 'walk, bike or wii' everyday. I'm not necessarily doing that EVERY day.. but I am trying to do something even if it's walking in place.. I did about 45min today on top the walk to & from the City Hall Farmers' Market.

Sean is taking the stairs up from checking the mail. He's got me taking the stairs down at least, although I seem to have a depth perception issue even when wearing my contacts. =)

One thing I'm noticing is the 3,000 step daily goal is pretty easy to attain as long as I get off my butt.. We hit the mark on our way back walking from visiting City Hall this morning around Noon. City Hall is 3 blocks up the street.. so double that plus the walking around at the Market (getting a healthy lunch to go) and visiting the "National Coffee Break" event on the 3rd floor.

We had PTI (Pardon the Interruption) on and that was easy to start walking in place while they did the 'rundown'.. Sean went to do something else so I changed it to another show and kept walking. I did 45min of continuous stepping in place.

You can do any number of things I've found to get "activity credit" if you want. Playing the wii is an easy and fun way to do it, whether playing Wii Sports or doing the wii fit. You can do an exercise DVD (there's a list of stuff including "Walk off the Pounds" or you can take a walk around the neighborhood, walk the dog (if we had one) or a zillion other things. Just move. That's about it. I'm working on it. I'm no expert of course, and I've gotten out of habit.


Day 18: 20 January Nintendo DS "personal trainer: walking" 9820 steps