Miniimize Me Rotating Header Image

BMI

Week Two Recap

Jul 27th, 2009
by James.
No comments yet

The second week has been punched in the mouth and is now lying whimpering and bruised across the curb. Let’s talk about how it went.

Sekrit Plan - Week 2

Fitness Benchmarks

As I mentioned at the beginning of the week, I was going to add some real world fitness benchmarks to the moon numbers that Wii Fit and Wii Sports hand out in the form of “ages”. This appears to be a success. I’ve seen improvement in push ups, crunches, and squats. Hopefully week over week I’ll become stronger in each of these areas.

I’ve also found that my resting heart rate seems to be a bit lower overall (by 3 bpm). This could be due to normal fluctuation, so I’ll be keeping an eye on it next week as well. Ideally it will trend downward.

Body fat percentage by calipers is the same. I really don’t know if I’m doing it right or not. But I haven’t seen major changes on the scale either, so I guess I’ll just have to keep at it and hope that I see some change as the weeks go by.

Wii Fit

I did succeed in doing 15 – 45 minutes of Wii Fit each day. I also tracked my heart rate on most days to get a sense of which activities were providing the most aerobic exercise. The activities I found most strenuous were:

  • Push Ups & Side Plank
  • Lunges
  • Plank
  • Island Run – Long

I wasn’t able to do the jackknife properly, so I didn’t list it on here. It is quite strenuous, but since I can’t do it right I don’t think I’d get much benefit from it.

EA Sports Active

I only played EA Sports Active for a short time. I had hoped to play more, but didn’t get to it. I found it more difficult than I would have expected to just jump into an activity. You need to create a workout playlist to do so, and the interface isn’t super intuitive. I would have preferred it if there was a menu like Wii Fit that let you just jump in and out of activities, even if it didn’t have the same level of tracking. I will probably come back to the 30 Day Challenge at some point since it includes pre-defined workouts.

Punch Out

Punch Out with motion control is fun to play. Though it can be frustrating going from the NES style to motion control + balance board. You sacrifice some precision for a more visceral experience and a decent level of activity. I only played one day this week, but this is a game that I could see rotating in once and a while for an alternative to Wii Fit and Wii Sports boxing activities.

Day One! Wii Fit Evaluation

Jul 13th, 2009
by James.
4 comments

Day One! Exciting? Yes? Let’s kick it off with a little Wii Fit action.

Look at that Svelte Mii! He certainly cuts a dashing figure.

Look at that Svelte Mii! He certainly cuts a dashing figure.

I erased my old Wii Fit profile and its sporadic data, and started off fresh. Begrudgingly, I’ve entered my height as 5’8“. In the image above I’ve obscured my birthday for reasons I now can’t remember. I’m sure there was a good reason to do so at the time. Oh wells – let’s get to the hot BMI action!

Oh, the Mii has undergone some changes. It's a bit more... horizontal now. It can't stand to look!

Oh, the Mii has undergone some changes. It's a bit more... horizontal now. It can't stand to look!

Overweight. That can’t be good.

Statistically balance boards that beat around the bush are more likely to get tossed into recyling bins. Just say it. I should be down around that 22 line.

Statistically balance boards that beat around the bush are more likely to get tossed into recyling bins. Just say it. I should be down around that 22 line.

27 and 22 don’t seem too far apart. But this graph sure makes it look like a long way. My Mii may be smiling, but I assure you, he’s crying on the inside.

I'm 1.93 above serious health risks!

I'm 1.93 into the health risks zone! Way to go.

That serious health risks line is kind of worrisome. I like my health the way I like my tuna – boring and predictable. This risky business is not for me.

178 Huh? I guess that's better than 871. I'm reaching, aren't I?

178 Huh? I guess that's better than 871. I'm reaching, aren't I?

Wii Fit is being cagey. My weight is somewhere just below 178, but it won’t tell me exactly where. However it will tell me, boldly and in a red font, that I am overweight. Thanks buddy. Could any good news come out of this initial consultation with the cruel balance board?

Hey, it's not all bad. Apparently my balance is okay. That's pretty impressive considering I was drunk when I took the test!

Hey, it's not all bad. Apparently my balance is okay. That's pretty impressive considering I was drunk when I took the test!

Despite having sucked down some boozes ahead of time, I managed to tipsy toe my way to a respectable balance score. Let us end this first encounter on a positive note and regroup after basking in its glow. Right about now I could go for some mozerella sticks dipped into a hot fudge sundae to help me get over the humiliation of the Wii calling me fat.

Goali-O! The Search for a Reasonable Target Weight

Jul 9th, 2009
by James.
1 comment

Wowzers. There sure are a lot of different ways to calculate what your “ideal” weight should be. Using the magic of (pseudo-)science, I believe I’ve divined my number. How have I arrived at so auspicious a figure? I will gladly tell you this thing.

The Excel oracle has revealed unto me a target weight accurate to several million decimal places. But I only need two, really. Thanks though.

The Excel oracle has revealed unto me a target weight accurate to several million decimal places. But I only really need two of them. Thanks though.

The Battle of the Bulges

First, I looked at height to weight charts for the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. I figured that they must have a lot of data to work off of. And, they have an interest in keeping people healthy. You’d think their statistics should probably be pretty accurate. Of course, this data pertains to men who train a lot and need are prepared to jump out of airplanes or skin crocodiles at a moment’s notice. So me – with my waggle wand, eating cereal in my underpants; I’m not exactly part of that sample group.

Actuary Ghouls

Moving right along, we find that life insurance companies also have a lot of data on weight and how it correlates to mortality. Unlike the army, the life insurance companies don’t really have a huge interest in keeping their wards healthy. But they do have a very strong interest in predicting exactly when you’re going to die. Morbid! This suggests that their data would be pretty strong. I have read that the insurance sample is based largely on white guys of average height, and therefore may not be accurate for everyone. As it turns out, I’m an average white guy. So it’ll be okay for me. Score (another) one for homogeneity.

Who Cries for BMI?

Next I turned to BMI. Poor BMI. Everyone seems to have a bone to pick with it. It tries to be a one-size-fits-all index. But because of this, there are a lot of exceptions. BMI just wants to be loved. Is that so hard to understand? Somehow I found shelter in my heart for this much maligned index, and together we discovered a decent weight range. The criticisms of BMI have to do with the fact that it will return inaccurate results for body builders, children, and may not work well for some ethnicities. It doesn’t take into account the balance of unhealthy fat to healthy muscle, age, or even gender. But as a general guideline for an average white guy, it seems like another good data point.

Calculators, Formulators, and Prognosticators

The next step was to just ask the internet for an easy answer. There are a lot of “ideal weight calculators” out there. Many of them use tables from the data above to generate an ideal weight based on height, age, gender, and frame size. Others use formulas developed by doctors over the years. And then there are some that are just black boxes with no indication of their formula. For all I know they could have been plucking numbers from a bingo tumbler. Regardless of their methods, most of the calculators fell in the same general range, so I guess they must follow some sensible set of guidelines.

Arriving at THE NUMBER

Once I had the data set above, I did a small amount of sifting. For the data that was based on body frame size, I adjusted it so that the recommendations would fall somewhere between small and medium. It turns out my wrists are really skinny, but my elbows are kind of medium. Since those are the two places where you are supposed to check for frame size, I figured I’d split the difference. Next, for each weight that was given as a range I took the average. Then I took all the “ideal weight” results, averaged those out, and did the same with ranges. I averaged those two numbers together, and viola! 149.58.

Okay, so it’s not rocket science. In fact, I’m sure that just averaging everything into a grey mush without any sort of weighting isn’t a very statistically sound way to arrive at a goal weight. But I figured that at the very least an average would knock off the highs and lows and give me something reasonable if not – as many of the calculators claim – ideal.

So I won’t be calling this my Ideal Weight. This is my “Reasonable Target Weight“. Not super sexy, I know, but then neither is a really long post about data gathering and Excel. Oh… crap.

If you’re trying to lose weight, have lost weight, or you’re a creepy voyeur who likes to watch people lose weight tell me this – how did you set your goal weight?

P.S. You can (Download the spreadsheet) with most of the information I gathered if you want.