34, 57.

Yesterday we got a Wii Fit, and spent a good part of our post-tacos evening playing with it.  I realize that I am perhaps the last person in my demographic to get one, which means that not only have I read quite a bit about other people's adventures with the Wii Fit, but I'm also going to write this entry based on the assumption that you've played with one, too.

I loaded up my Mii -- my Mii with the lime green shirt and auburn flip-bob that looks almost exactly like the Mii on the back of the Wii Fit disc box -- and did my body test.  I'm 34, 5'2", and the Fit agreed with my German bathroom scale that I am currently 115 pounds, which gave me a BMI of 21.something.  Smack-dab in the middle of that yellow healthy weight zone, right under the mark of 22 that the Fit informs me is the statistically healthiest point on the chart.  So far, so good.  No surprises, even though I'd been prepared for the Fit to give me a shockingly innaccurate weight.  Next, I was instructed to stand straight and still so the balance board could measure my center of balance, and after years of T-Tapp and yoga, I had that little red dot making my center of balance precisely in the center of the board.  Rocked it!  Lookitme!  Whoo!

Next up was the basic balance test, the one where you have to shift your weight from side to side to hold it in a specific spot for three seconds.  This was surprisingly difficult.  It felt like I was backwards, that my left and the screen's left were on opposite sides.  I only managed to accomplish three out of five rounds in my thirty seconds, and the Fit scoffed at me.  It then gave me a Wii Fit Age of....

Are you ready?

57.

Fifty-freaking-seven.  This with a chart-perfect BMI and bullseye center of balance.  57!  This seemed such an injustice that my husband investigated, and realized I'd done my test with the balance board facing the wrong direction, so I really was trying to do it backwards.  Oops.  (For the record, my husband barely scraped into the healthy weight zone with a BMI of 19, and his Wii Fit age was a mere 5 years above his actual age, which is pretty darn good considering that his center of balance is way, way off because he's still favoring the foot with the not-yet-healed broken big toe.)  I'm going to redo my body test today, and I have every expectation that I'll shave a few years off my assumed age.

And yet, I'm not feeling like 57 is all that wrong.  Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that recently, I've been feeling like 34 is almost as old as 57.  That I am old.  That I am aging, sliding down the slope toward decrepitude.  That my fitness goal can no longer be "develop perfect body" but "keep body from falling apart in the next five minutes."  That my ass looks like something you'd see on a tabloid cover with the tagline "Star's Secret Bikini Body Horror!" 

There's a lot more I have to say on this topic, but I'm running out of time for this morning.  You can expect further entries on the intertwined topics of age, fitness, body image and paparazzi-worthy backside nightmares.  But make me feel a little bit better, won't you, and tell me what your first Wii Fit Age was... I know you remember.  I know it's scarred onto your consciousness.

Comments

[Jenn]

That's funny! The first time I was on it I didn't realize that I had to stand so darn still and my BMI was also 57. I had to do it again:) These days it tells me that my age is 30. I like younger. Of course my BMI is 23. Hmmmm. Would love to get to that 22 holy grail -- just not enough to work at it! Although my husband, who is slim and trim, supposedly has a BMI of 24, so that makes me suspicious.

My body image alternately sucks with, I look fine, I am happy. But man my face is looking OLD!

[Ninotchka]

Nope. I'm the last person on earth to not have Wii fit. I keep saying I want it and then I get distr...oh, look at that shiny thing over there!

[mayberry]

Honestly, I think mine was within a couple of years of my real age.

My husband had the same problem with the backwards board. He was going NUTS trying to do the table tilt and later realized it wasn't his fault.

[Heather]

We have a Wii fit, but I haven't used it yet, because of the pregnancy and now the need to recover after the birth. I'll let you know as soon as I get on the board.

[lindsey]

don't have one, but i am sure i'd be about 75 what with the aching pregnancy hips and the 13 hour nursing shift feet.

we'll probably break down and do the wii for christmas or something.