Media outlets are abuzz over Mickey DeLorenzo’s nine pound weight loss with his six week Nintendo Wii weight loss experiment but most of the media stories I’ve read are all missing the important points.
It should be no surprise that he lost weight. To lose weight you simply need to burn more calories than you take in. When you compare sitting on the couch for 30 minutes doing nothing with standing up and flailing your arms while diving around the room with Wii Sports then you are of course going to burn more calories with the Wii.
That’s simple. All other things being equal (including your own eating) means that vigorously playing Wii Sports (or engaging in any other activity) versus doing nothing means you will lose weight.
Period.
Guaranteed.
End of story.
You could also burn the same calories (and probably lose the same amount of weight) if you spent those 30 minutes painting your living room walls or jogging in place or simply waving your arms around like an idiot. Yet, curiously, Sherwin-Williams has not tried to sell their paint brushes as exercise equipment and America still has an obesity problem (myself included) even though many of our living rooms are freshly painted.
The real story behind the Nintendo Wii and anyone else’s weight loss is that the Nintendo Wii (and especially Wii Sports) makes exercise fun. If something is more fun then you’re more likely to do it. The more you play the Wii, the more calories you burn, the more weight you lose.
My own Nintendo Wii Weight Loss Experiment is not necessarily concerned with how much weight I’ve lost (ten pounds and counting!) because I know that I will drop some pounds. Rather, this experiment is to see if the Nintendo Wii can keep my interest for long enough to serve as an actual exercise method which I will continue to use every day.
All of this being said, just about any video game system can lead to weight loss. What if played Halo on the xBox and jogged in place? Then I would lose weight. What if I played Metal Gear Solid 4 on the PS3 and had to carry it up the stairs to set it up? Then I would lose weight. All video games have the potential to work as weight loss methods if you put in the right effort.
Any activity versus no activity will cause you to burn calories and potentially lose weight. What’s more important is for the activity to be fun enough to keep you playing, and exercising, again and again.
So far the Nintendo Wii has succeeded for me where other activities have failed.
4 Responses to “Wii Exercise Experiment – Day 22 – What the Media Doesn’t Get About the Wii and Weight Loss”
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Wii says:
If it is between buying a gym membership and a wii im buying a wii.
Why not have fun while exercising?
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:50 am -
The Tanooki says:
What the media doesn’t get about Wii and weightloss
Tom Coffee over at SpillingCoffee.com has written about how the Wii serves to help you lose weight just like a variety of other methods; though unlike those many other methods, the Wii makes it fun. Excerpt and link below:
…You could also burn th… -
thordora says:
Now if only i can find one come bonus time. I’ve already explained to my husband that since my foot is all mucked up, this is the best thing for me. AND my kid can play.
perfection.
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WiiHealthy - WiiFit and WiiSports make you lose weight, become healthy by working out, fitnessing, exercising on the Nintendo Wii says:
[...] At Spilling Coffee there’s an interesting article about losing weight with the Wii. He says that Wii Sports isn’t the only way to lose weight by videogaming, but it is one of the most fun ways to lose weight. This is very important in the whole weight dropping thing with the Nintendo Wii; keep it fun and make it last as long as possible. If you’re getting agitated at a certain point, put the controller away and go catch some air or do something else to relax. Since a lot of gamers have to deal with overweight and are crazy about the new machine, Nintendo has really invented a cure. News, Nintendo, Testimony, Wii, Wii Sports, WiiFat, WiiFit, WiiFitnessNews, Nintendo, Testimony, Wii, Wii Sports, WiiFat, WiiFit, WiiFitness [...]