Week 1: day 1

Week 1 Stats: (cant believe im putting this out there for you all!)
Height: 64 inches / 5ft 4 inches
Weight: 136lbs / 9st 10lbs
Bust: 34 inches
Waist: 28 inches
Hips: 35 inches

After reading many positive reviews, and hearing much hype, EA WII ACTIVE sounded like the perfect boost I needed to my monotonous exercise regime. I lugged my ass over to our local Asda and forked out the £44.99 for the EAs "personal trainer in a box".

Upon getting home, I eagerly shredded open the box to find 2 neat little packages and the game. Package 1 was the rather disappointingly flimsy looking Resistance band (red) with hand straps. In package 2 was the leg strap (which seems to be good quality). This is designed to go around your right top leg to hold the nunchuck for certain exercises.

I assembled the band as per instructions, popped on the leg strap and loaded the game. EA ACTIVE started with a somewhat cheesy tune (a theme that carried on throughout the game!) along side a brief intro, from who I am lead to believe is Opera Winfrey's personal trainer Bob Greene? (Thinking this is more of a novelty for our American counterparts than for us brits??) ACTIVE is easy enough to set up. Your vital stats are input via imperial or metric options (gender, height, weight etc) and you are also led through various options for personalising your avatar. Once you have completed your profile, you are led into the main menu. From here you can choose either custom or pre-determined workouts, The 30 day challenge and Journal. The layout is simple to navigate and its so easy just to jump straight in and get started.

On choosing the 30 day challenge (as thats all iv got until my shopping spree for a "new me" wardrobe) I am then asked to select which gender I would prefer as my trainer (I chose a man). Im led into a new screen which reveals a weekly calendar. Here it shows us past work outs, what day I am on, how many workouts iv completed and a few other dribs and drabs such as telling me what I can expect from "todays" workout. As I get started on day one, im asked if I would like to intricate a Wii Balance Board. I chose "yes" as I do own one of these. Im also questioned on what intensity I would like to have my workout set at. Here I went for the highest setting as I am quite fit already and I wanted to see what this exercise game classed as a hard workout! Further more, the game gives you a prediction of how many calories it expects you to burn (based on the stats you input earlier) in any one session in the form of a graph.

Each exercise is started with a brief guide as to what you will need and how to hold or place your controllers, followed on by a video demo of the exercise. After following the warm-up routine (walking and jogging) Im thrown into a 20 minute world of sweat and pain! I was given a great variety of exercises which included lunges, bicep curls, in line stating (a killer by the way!) and loads more which im struggling to remember. It was enough to get me sweating, which so far only 30 mins on either my x-trainer and bike have only been able to do. I finished the game with a cool off and exceeded EA ACTIVES pre determined calorie chart by 7 calories (ok not much but enough to make you feel rather smug!!) I also won a few medals on my way to keep that motivation going!

The game certainly has my attention and I will be keeping at my 30 day challenge, if only to feel that satisfying burn you get, knowing you have had a good workout! There are a few niggles though. The music for the game is soooo cheesy and the trainers are very much the all encouraging American "you can do it!" cliche, but in future I intend to pop on my headphones and listen to my ipod for workouts so its not so much as an issue as it is nit-picking.

Overall, iv enjoyed my experience of the game and feel as though iv had a better workout that other fitness games claim to give you, and have woken up today feeling a little sore!!

Heres to the rest of my challenge! WISH ME LUCK!!

Sam xx