Hello, everybody. I’m totally new to tudiabetes and I hope I’m doing this blog thing right.
When I got diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes in October of 2010 (a week before Holloween, which for me was like a slap from Satan), my husband and I wanted to find some way for me to keep up a regimented daily workout. I’ve never been the best at exercising before Diabetes, but now it’s been a giant MUST for me.
Our quest to find a good workout system for me started out with my mentioning that I had a workout video collecting dust somewhere that I bought a couple of years ago (but unfortunately had only used about 4 times and gave up on). My husband replied to that with: “with that glowing workout track record, I would do better to try something else.” We started shopping around for exercise equipment, but the idea of a bulky exercise equipment for me was soon scratched off the short list for several logistical reasons. He was thinking… stationary bike or treadmill, while I was thinking stairmaster, something I can climb on (and keep on climbing) in front of the TV. I have always been prone to motion sickness, so one of those slidey-things that pulls your torso up and down on a horizontal plank while you try to pull your own weight was a big no-no, and you can just FORGET about me on a treadmill (I told him I turned green just imagining myself on them).
At that point, he said “Alright, lets look into stationary bikes.” I didn’t have any problem with that idea at all since with a stationary bike, my head wouldn’t be jiggling around for a half hour. The ones we found at sporting stores were too bulky for our place (a one-bedroom apartment) unless we never wanted to sit on a couch ever again in our increasingly non-spacious living room. And then to make it even more apparent that I was not destined for owning a stationary bike, my husband found out that the adjustable seats on all of them was built for people at least 5’2" tall in height. I am, on the other hand, 4’11" short. He then found a reasonably priced one at walmart.com or someplace online that was like a third of the size we saw in the sport stores and even in the walmart nearby, that didn’t require 5’2" tall people. But then it would need to be shipped in a suspiciously non-stationary-bike-sized box! Which meant we would have to assemble the thing ourselves! No major insult to my husband, but neither one of us are mechanical-fixer-upper-complicated-assembler geniuses. (I still don’t know the difference between a flat screwdriver and the other one, the thingymajiggy.) So the mere thought of having to figure out assembling a stationary bike ourselves made us take a 7 second wide-eyed pause and say, “Ok, so no to bikes then.”
(Amongst all this long-winded recounting of our quest for my fitness, I’m fairly sure I have a point coming soon…)
I believe around November’ish of 2010, the nerds from XBOX360 released the first handful of Kinect games (sort of a wireless virtual motion detection apparatus). Unlike the Wii (which is also a fun way to get people up and moving around while playing video games), the Kinect doesn’t require the players to hold onto any type of wireless controllers to detect what they are doing. The kinect uses some fancy-dangled new technology that detects your movements by scanning the major joints of your body and therefore can tell if you are doing a high kick, the Robot dance, or making threats to tickle someone near where you’re standing… thereby allowing people to look extra super silly hopping around in front of their television sets in the privacy and safety from massive public embarassment in their own homes, as well as trying to work up a good sweat while playing video games (I hope I’m describing it right, I’m using my own words).
We didn’t own an XBOX360 so we ended up buying the console as well as the Kinect system which is this long black bar with eyeballs on the front, and the thing swivels up and down at you when you turn the system on to detect the space you have to work with in front of your TV. It came with a starter game disc called Kinect Adventures with like 5 different games which was really fun (I enjoyed the kickball and the wild rapids games the most). Around Christmas, we bought the separate game “Your Shape: Fitness Evolved”, and I’ve been using that thing almost everyday up until now. It keeps track of my total calories burned everyday, comes with a large variety of different workouts so I won’t get bored. It even tells me whenever I’m not doing a workout correctly (I got alot of “you need to adjust your pose” in the Yoga parts hehe) so you can get the best out of your workout, and it simply makes exercising FUN, which is something I never thought I’d hear myself type out loud.
We decided to splurge from our entertainment fund and buy the Kinect because we discussed at length the advantages of having a fun way for me to workout and keep it going long-term to offset the total cost. It wasn’t cheap by any means, but I haven’t slacked from my daily workouts since we bought it, so it’s been worth it for me, and my full-time working, cheap and lovable husband is super pleased with my progress. My husband and I are both very cheap (frugal) with our savings, but this has definately been the best investment we could have made for my diabetes control.
Here’s a link to the YourShape:FitnessEvolved Website where it explains in better detail what it is and how it works.
http://yourshapegame.us.ubi.com/
If anybody else has discovered the Kinect as a way to keep their workout for Diabetes fresh and fun everyday, that would be awesome news to me and will help me to feel alot less crazy-neurotic. If you haven’t researched the benefits of the Kinect for XBOX360 to incorporate into your Diabetes workout regime, I am highly recommending it and can vouch for how it changed my views on mandatory exercise not being such a huge pill to swallow after my diagnosis.
If you all think I’m completely nuts, please, I will try not to be overly sensitive when you tell me to shush up.
Please pardon my long-windedness… I wanted to be thorough in all my explanations =) Thank you once again for making me feel welcome here in the TuDiabetes community when I decided to sign up 4 days ago. I hope I can keep sharing my thoughts and become well known to all of you, even though my first Blog post is about my shameless advertising of an expensive piece of machinery.
A relatively lonely Diabetes newbie,
Izzy