Nine Weeks Down, Many Many more to come.

Well it’s over. The Nine week EA sports challenge is done and my results are in. My original goal, to see if video games could help you lose weight, has been completed and I feel I have proven without a doubt that if you can improve your health and lose weight by sticking to a workout regime set by a Video game. After completing the challenge I feel I need to clarify something. This is not actually a game. My initial impressions were correct; this is a serious fitness product that you just happen to use on a video game system. It would be a disservice to call this product a game as the reality is that this is one of the best home fitness products I have seen and while it will never be the equal to a personal trainer or a commitment to an expensive gym membership it is a great substitute for those who wish to simply get fit at home.

Worth the $$$ and the time I put into it.

When I last wrote I was on my way to Fiji and was worried about what it would do to my workout schedule. Well my worries were realised when, after I went to the trouble of packing my playstation and securing it for transport, the TV in my hotel room was broken. This fact was compounded by the reality of what locals call “Fiji time” or in other words “why do something today when it could be reasonably put off till tomorrow”.  This is a condition that pervades throughout the Fijian Islands (and the whole pacific island region from what I have heard) and it led to a 6 day wait for the TV to get fixed, putting my plans of working out in Fiji to a permanent rest.

Not one to let something like this get me down I continued to think of my health, even if it was just a little bit. Eating healthy was difficult due to the rich nature of the resort food; however I lived this week by the “lesser of two evils” philosophy and went for the foods I felt were better for me. I also walked when I could and did plenty of swimming. This attitude led to me only gaining 1.2kg over my trip and after the large serve of Lobster Mornay and significant amount of cocktails I consumed over the 8 night period I am pretty happy with that result. I have since lost 1kg of that weight on my return just by going back to a healthy diet so things are still looking good.

Yup, this is me busting my diet wide open. Enjoying it too!

Now that my 9 weeks are over I would just like to point out a few things that have happened to me in this time.

-          My fitness has noticeably improved

-          I have lost 2 shirt sizes

-          My jeans are noticeably too big

-          I have dropped three belt notches

These are just some of the additional benefits I have gained through the use of EA sports active 2. Along with my significant amount of weight loss all of the above results make me very glad that I took the step (and the $120) and participated in the challenge. In fact I am so happy I am planning on starting the 9 week program once again after another week off (the diet is not off, nor is the walking. Just the program.) This time I plan to do it on the high intensity and make it through without missing a workout. With this plan I hope to get to 120kgs in time for my 30^th birthday in August.

Well that’s it for this part of my blog. I just want to say a quick thank you to all of you out there that have read, offered support, given advice and basically just helped me on my way. It made the hard weeks easier knowing that I had many readers out there keen to see me finish this challenge and improve my health. Special thanks have to go to my Wife and kids, who supported me throughout the whole challenge. Without their help it simply wouldn’t have been possible to complete.  Finally I would like to say that I will be going back to my old style of blog and basically writing about what I feel like. If you like what I have written so far please feel free to hang around and read my future entries. I will also provide the occasional update on the weight loss if you are all interested.

So once again thanks for the support and here is what you have all been waiting for. The final ever “Hewso’s Stat Tracker”.

Workouts completed                      - 33

Hours of Exercise                             - 18 hours 33 minutes

Calories Burned                                - 11 078

Distance Ran                                     - 40.76km

Average Heart Rate                        -126bpm

Max Heart Rate                                -195bpm

Total Weight Loss                             - 12.6 kg

Total Measurement loss                   - 17cm