30 Days with EA Sports Active

By Torrey Holbrook Walker in Wii, EA Sports Active on Jun 19, 2009

Editor's Note: People are taking this EA Sports Active stuff seriously! My girlfriend will "play" it after her normal workouts for an extra boost, community member Alex Cronk-Young has been documenting his 30-day challenge (with fairly positive results), and now, industry writer Torrey Walker tells us his story. Make sure to read to the end for a happy (and funny) ending. Note: He is not pictured here. EA's model is. We do not know who she is.

Speaking of EA Sports Active, it's probably time we award a winner in our giveaway.And that winner is Michael Burridge. Congrats, Michael! Now...you better use your copy of Active or we'll force you to regift it to someone who will.... -Shoe

Except for a few precious months as I was finishing grad school, I've never been in shape. I've always carried around extra weight in embarrassing places, and I've used it as an excuse to not only avoid physical activity but also physically attractive women.

For all the things I can "star student" my way through, though, my lack of physical fitness has been a constant thorn in my side. I've cursed the gods for making me into a musician instead of an athlete, a scholar instead of a baller. I watch people eat whatever they want without gaining a pound while just the thought of eating pizza makes me go up a moob cup size.

A few months ago, I got fed up with the lack of energy and self-consciousness about how my clothes fit. I've tried to lose weight before with limited results, but I would always burn myself out and revert to longstanding unhealthy habits. In order to have any lasting results, it was going to require something extra. I'd have to bring something to my fitness plan that has never been there before.

This, like all new futures, began with a declaration: "My fitness is my most important project. Fitness first and everything else later." With that, I had to find some form of physical activity that would keep me entertained.

I'm writing this to talk about EA Sports Active for the Wii -- particularly the results of my 30-day challenge -- but before I do that, the results need some context. I can't have you thinking that if you just pick this game up and do 20 workouts that you will necessarily see similar results. Exercise is only about 20 percent of healthy weight loss. The other 80 percent is nutrition. So keep in mind that in addition to these workouts, I also slowly developed the following nutritional habits:

Drinking half my body weight number in fluid ounces of water daily, gradually. I drink about 120 oz. of water a day.
Eating roughly 500 calories below my resting metabolic rate (given by my age and height as roughly 2500 calories).
Consuming roughly 150g of protein per day (see next item).
Consuming four to six small meals a day, two of which are protein shakes with at least 30g of protein.
Avoiding sweets and breads by keeping healthy snacks always within arm's reach.
Getting plenty of fiber

I mention all this to say that when your nutrition is balanced, exercise really gets results.

Starting Weight: 235

I was an early adopter of EA Sports Active. I wanted to wait around for the reviews until it crossed my mind that I wouldn't want to trust someone's review for an exercise game. Instead I just went to the website and watched the videos. I couldn't tell if it would be hard exercise, but anything that would promote physical activity is definitely in the budget. So I brought it home with a set of aftermarket elastic bands because I'd heard the included band snaps easily.

The game's main mode is the 30-day challenge, and I can commit to almost anything for 30 days. It also reputedly takes 30 days to form a new habit. The game generally schedules blocks of two consecutive workout days followed by a rest day, but in the very rare instances where I wasn't able to do a workout on the day recommended, the game substituted a rest day and moved the remaining workouts forward. I actually completed my 30-day challenge in 31 days, but the game didn't hassle me over it.

The first thing I found about EA Sports Active is that it suffers from some of the normal shortcomings of Wii games. In some cases you feel like you must being doing the correct motion, but for some reason the game isn't registering it. This is more of a pain with certain exercises than others (to quote a friend, "I am lunging left, goddammit!"), but within a few workouts you tend to develop the extra finesse needed to get in sync with the game. The only exercises where I got consistent negative feedback from the trainer were two jumping exercises: jumping lunges and side to side jumps. I had to jump really high or far to impress the trainer, and that's just too dangerous in my condo. Also, holding the Wii remote and nunchuck while doing elastic band exercises is always a bit awkward. If this game ever comes to Project Natal for Xbox 360, I'll buy it in a heartbeat.

I also noticed the resistance training exercises are really effective when the elastic band is used correctly. I stand 6'1" tall, and if you want me to do bicep curls to shoulder presses, I have to keep my legs pretty close together given the long stretch. On the other hand, doubling back the band on itself to increase resistance when doing bicep curls or bent over rows is necessary to keep the exercises from being too easy. Call it another layer of finesse, but once you get familiar with the exercises, you'll know how to quickly prepare for each one.

Next, around the time the game introduced cross-knee punches, the nunchuck wire was just killing me. I bought a Nyko Kama wireless nunchuck to rectify this, which turned out to be my best idea yet. The freedom of punching and swinging your arms widely without fear of getting smacked by the wire really allows you to focus on the workout, not the imperfections of the underlying technology. This was doubly noticeable in the sports activities, which were easily my favorites. I hate basketball in real life, but those EA Sports Active passing drills might as well be hadouken practice.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that every workout I did with the game made me sweat. There wasn't one where I felt I hadn't done anything or that I hadn't gotten my heart rate up. I did most of the workouts on medium intensity, but the four high-intensity workouts I completed really wore me the hell out and left me breathless. Some of the leg exercises like the squat 'n' hold and inline skating are just plain brutal on high-intensity mode, and anyone who thinks this game isn't a suitable replacement for a day at the gym is probably already in fantastic shape anyway. Or maybe is cheating his/her way through the exercises.

Final Weight: 222.5 (Net loss of 12.5 lbs)

Weight is a number. It doesn't have any real significance, but we pretend that it does. If I still weighed 235 pounds and looked the way I do now, my time with EA Sports Active would have been worth it. But I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that for my height, my start weight is considered "obese" by standard body mass index (BMI) charts, and my end weight is "overweight." I had to buy new clothes because I was nearly swimming in some of my favorite standbys.

But it's not so easy to put a measure on confidence. I look at myself in the mirror now and think, "Hmph. Still fat!" And it doesn't phase me one bit. Then I get dressed, and I feel like I look good. The types of women I want to look at me look at me, and we exchange smiles when I'm not so awestruck that a hot lady is checking me out. And I'm single, so I can enjoy it.

Now I just need to do a 30-day challenge in EA Sports Mack-tive.

Comments (15)

Thanks for posting, Torrey! Really glad to have you here. And congrats!

Demian Linn , June 18, 2009

Congrats for losing weight, Torrey! I've tried for years -- I'll drop 50, and the 50 will come back. Weight loss is one of the most difficult things to achieve in the world, and I applaud you for it.

Jason Wilson , June 18, 2009

Way to go

Toby Davis , June 19, 2009

This blows my writings out of the water (I should probably put effort into outlining and drafting them like I do my other stuff). Congrats on the weight loss. I'm a few days from the end of my 30 days and as of 2 days ago I weighed 17 pounds lighter. Active is the jump in fitness games that we needed.

Alex R. Cronk-Young , June 19, 2009

Congratulations on the weight loss. That was probably the most useful piece on the "game" that I've read yet. I'd love to hear how you're doing with it in a month. Hopefully you'll have kept it up.

Aaron Thomas , June 19, 2009

Mack-tive! Haha, Torrey, that was great.

Jeffrey Michael Grubb , June 19, 2009

Congratulations! I look forward to sweating my ass off!

Oh, and Shoe, don't worry, I'll use it. I'm determined to get sexy!

Michael Burridge , June 19, 2009

Congrats! And it looks like you're more disciplined than I am since I'm still on the 30-Day challenge -- sad because I started a day later than you did!

Was I the "friend" who got quoted?

http://twitter.com/aduceclean/status/1871876968

Thanks for the post and tips on the wireless nunchuk option...the cord does, annoyingly, get in the way sometimes.

Carlos Macias , June 19, 2009

This pretty much sealed the deal for me. I've been eyeballing it since it came out. Glad to hear you have success with it!

David H. Meinhart , June 19, 2009

I'd like to do the EA Sports Active part of it. Not so much all that healthy eating. Unless cheeseburgers have all of a sudden become super healthy.

Dan Hsu , June 20, 2009

Shoe, Cheeseburgers can be as healthy as you want them to be, its just a matter of not looking at the nutritional facts

David H. Meinhart , June 20, 2009

I've been vaguely interested in this game. I'm overweight for my height at 200 lbs and I'd like to get down to a "normal" BMI at 180. I've started riding 34 miles a day on an exercise bike and I'm starting to get decent results from that.

I lost a respectable amount of weight playing Wii Fit (about ten pounds), but I stopped playing it completely after a couple of months. At some point, it's just dull as hell. EA Sports Active looks like a more involving, personalized game, but I don't know if I want to bother standing in front of my television trying to put up with the motion controls again.

I guess for the time being I'll just keep on riding my fake bicycle while listening to Beck.

Benjamin Torrey , June 20, 2009

34 miles a day on the bike?? How long does that take?

Demian Linn , June 20, 2009

I've been doing two sessions of 17 miles (one in the morning, one in the evening), each takes about 60-70 minutes... so altogether in one day it takes about 2 hours and 20 minutes.

It's far less impressive than it sounds.

Benjamin Torrey , June 20, 2009