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Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012 – Diary week 5

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Thank you to Ubisoft for providing me with a copy of Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012 and sponsoring this fitness diary series. Please click here to learn more about Ubisoft. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions are my own.

I didn’ t workout Christmas morning, the only day I’ve missed since I started exercising five weeks ago.  I’m really suprised that I’ve been able to be so consistant.  Before this, I don’t think I’ve exercised on a regular basis for nearly twenty years.

There’s quite a variety of activities and workouts in the program.  Even at this point, I think I’ve only gone through 25% of the content and there’s also a lot of variety within the activities.  I’m still not ready for the more strenuous activities.  But knowing the progress I’ve made in the last few weeks, I can see that if I continue to work out every day, it won’t be but a few months before I’m able to do them all, including the push-ups.

Looking over my first diary entry from a month ago, I think that some of my problems have been solved.  The waiting between exercises is much more bearable when your still catching your breath or resting from the last one.  And my stamina has increased to the point that I rarely give up before the end.  I’ve also started wearing my older clothes that were too tight before I started working out, which was one my main reasons for starting this project. I really do think that I have made the first steps toward a long-term change in my life.

This is the last week of my YSFE diary.  Here’s week 1 and last week.  And now how would you like to your own copy? Ubisoft is going to give a copy to one lucky reader!

Mandatory Entry: You much comment on 1 of the 5 diary posts.

Extra Entry:  As always we are making it even easier to win! Just leave a comment for each extra action!

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This giveaway will close on 1/7 so enter!!!

Compensated, Endorsed, Reviews, video games

Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012 – Diary week 4

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Thank you to Ubisoft for providing me with a copy of Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012 and sponsoring this fitness diary series. Please click here to learn more about Ubisoft. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions are my own.

I met my objective, 360 minutes of activity in four weeks!  I had a slow start since during the first week I wasn’t up for doing the medium activity exercises that qualified to be counted toward my objective.

 

One of the activity sets is a set created in a partnership with Humana, Inc.
It has three workout programs: Strengthen Your Heart, focused on high blood pressure; Active Kids, targeted at preventing childhood obesity; and Aging With Grace, designed to help elder mobility and agility. These were a little tougher for me than I thought they would be.  However, I did notice one of the benefits of using the Your Shape program.  Several times I had decided to give up or slow down but when the next exercise in the routine came on the screen, I’d try it and get back into the swing of it.

My weight is still edging up, which means I’m still building muscle (I hope). I definitely have more energy and more stamina. I’m able to many of the 15+ minute routines without too much trouble.  I’m still not doing too much jumping around, but I can tell there’s been a big improvement when doing exercises where I need to kick or bring up my knees.

I’ll be posting one more diary update next week.  Here’s week 1 and last week. After that, we’ll be giving away a free copy of YFSE to a random commenter chosen from the comments on one of the five diary posts, including this one.

PS I still haven’t missed a day since I started the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

Every day, rain or shine!

Compensated, Endorsed, Reviews, Uncategorized, video games

Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012 – Diary week 3

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Thank you to Ubisoft for providing me with a copy of Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012 and sponsoring this fitness diary series. Please click here to learn more about Ubisoft. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions are my own.

Well, I weighed myself this week.  I’m kind of glad that I didn’t do that at the start of my exercising because I would have put the focus on my weight instead of my overall fitness, which is definitely improving.  I got out a couple of my old shirts, which seem to fit better than they did when I put them away.  But at this point, I don’t have a lot of outward improvement.  What I do have is increased flexibility, more energy (which I’ve mostly been wasting by staying up too late) and more stamina for the workouts.  I’ll track my weight again in a few weeks, but I plan on building more muscle before I lose much fat.

Last Saturday, the team I’ve been coaching went to our first Lego robotics competition. It was a long day of standing and walking around, but I seemed to do better than I normally do in this type of situation.  What I was dreading was how I would feel Sunday and Monday, which is when I usually pay for an unusual day of activity.  But when I woke up, I was feeling mostly fine, which is my new normal. (I’m a little achy every day.  Not much, but I can feel my muscles all the time now.  I think this will wear off in time, but even now it’s not that bad.)

I’ve been trying out more of the activities this week.  My wife got me to try a Bollywood workout when we first got the program.  I’ve been doing it most mornings.  It’s low impact and not too fast, and I find it easier than even the Zen activities.  (At my size, slowly posing and stretching requires a lot of energy.)  Under an activity category, like Bollywood, there are multiple selections, each listing a level of difficulty (Easy, Medium, or Hard) and the number of minutes you’ll be working out.  After going through the two short and easy “training” sessions over a few days, I started doing a Medium, 15-minute routine that I’ve been doing most mornings this week.  Each routine is broken up into several different moves or exercises, and you do several sets of each exercise throughout the routine.  Each exercise has multiple parts and the program tells you for each part if you’ve done it correctly by marking it with a green dot (and a small chime).  At the end of each set, it tells you what percent you did correctly and then there is an overall percentage at the end of the routine.  This morning I got 90% correct, which I guess means I’m a grade A exerciser.

Several of the others seem to follow the same pattern.  I’ve done Hip Hop a couple times, but don’t have the hang of it yet, and Cardio Boxing, which is fun but definitely leaves me winded.

Bootcamp
Bootcamp: Running, push-ups, and attacking

The Bootcamp activity is a little crazy.  It includes these attack moves like the Sumo Squat Attack and the Double Knee Kick Attack.  It also has running and push-ups.  Now I haven’t done a push-up in my adult life (and not many as a kid) so I’m looking forward to be able to complete this one, but I’m not there yet.

I’m still working out every day and don’t have any plans to stop.  I’ve really been suprised how entrenched this has become as part of my daily routine.

I’ll be posting diary updates every week for two more weeks.  Here’s week 1 and week 2. After that, we’ll be giving away a free copy of YFSE to a random commenter chosen from the comments on one of the five diary posts, including this one.

Compensated, Endorsed, giveaway, Reviews, video games

Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012 – Diary week 2

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Thank you to Ubisoft for providing me with a copy of Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012 and sponsoring this fitness diary series. Please click here to learn more about Ubisoft. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions are my own.

Week two and I haven’t missed a day yet!

  • This week, I’m definitely noticing that the workouts are getting easier and that I have more stamina.
  • I’m used to muscle aches being due to a one-time event, like helping someone move.  After a couple days, they would go away and I’m back to “normal”.  Now the aches I’m feeling mean I’m stretching myself and I’ll be better than “normal” when they go away.
  • I’m pro-rut. That is, I like to do get in a habit (some good, some bad).  I so surprised that I’m now in the habit of exercising every morning.  I’m actually wondering what it will feel like the first day that I don’t get up and work out.
  • I’m feeling it in my ankles.  It’s a little weird, but I guess my ankles need strengthening also.
  • There are targeted exercise routines for different parts of the body, so you can focus on your arms or your abs, etc.  Since I’m on the “shape up” program, I’ve been trying out a little of all of them (except the one listed as “sports preparation”, that one seems a little too intense for me.)
  • The loading times between exercises is easier to handle now that I’m not just doing the two-minute starter ones.  I don’t mind a little break.
Bootcamp
Bootcamp: That's not me on the right

When I first started it had me select an objective, and I said I wanted to “shape up and slim down”.  It then set a goal for 360 minutes of exercise (30 minutes a day, 3 days a week, for 4 weeks).  But at the end of last week, I was only at 6% done.  I figured out my problem.  As part of its plan for me, it wants me to choose from a set of specific activities.  Unfortunately for me, that set doesn’t include a lot of the very basic easy ones.  Now that I’m ready to move from light to medium exercise, I’m doing more from the “shape up” set and am now up to 22% done meeting my objective.  I’m planning on hitting 100% before the end of the year.  It’s also showing me as burning almost 600 calories so far, but most of those were this week as well.

I’ll be posting diary updates every week for the next three weeks.  Here’s week 1. After that, we’ll be giving away a free copy of YFSE to a random commenter chosen from the comments on one of the five diary posts, including this one.

Compensated, Endorsed, giveaway, Reviews, video games

Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012 – Diary week 1

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Thank you to Ubisoft for providing me with a copy of Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012 and sponsoring this fitness diary series. Please click here to learn more about Ubisoft. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions are my own.

I’m not into fitness.  I lead a fairly sedentary life and I like it that way.  I like the weather to be 72 degrees and fluorescent.  So it’s not shocking that I’m out of shape. I’m also software developer and my hobbies are programming, playing computer and board games, and watching TV.   That’s why I jumped at the chance to review Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012, or YSFE for short.  My wife just picked up an Xbox 360 on a Black Friday sale and this way I get to work out and play video games at the same time!

I just saw a post on Lifehacker on giving your New Year’s resolution a 30-day trial, and I’m already doing that!  YSFE recommends 3 workouts a week, but I’ve been doing it every morning this week.  I left the house this morning at 5:30, but I still got up a little earlier that I would have so that I could work out. My biggest surprise was that I had more energy than I did before.  I had been planning on going to bed earlier to offset the early mornings, but I didn’t and I still had more energy all day.

Some notes from Week 1:

  • There’s a several minute intro video that you have to watch once per person.  I first watched it when my wife was signed in, then had to watch it again before my first workout.
  • The Kinect interface works very well. We have a Wii Fit Plus, which works well for specific activities, but the Kinect really tracks all of your movements pretty accurately for working out and for navigating through the menus.
  • Some of the warm-ups are really fun.  My favorite is the Wall Breaker which is basically a punching and kicking game.
  • Waiting for each workout to load seems to take a long time, and it either shows you how to do the workout (for the simple warm-up ones) or it shows a health fact or tip.  But there’s only a few tips and they repeat over and over.
  • The workouts are targeted at specific areas, like cardio or glutes, and do a good job demonstrating the exercises as well as monitoring you and telling you when you’re not doing them right.  This is very helpful since I tend to cheat (that is score the points with the least amount of effort).
  • Also, I’m so out of shape that I often run out of steam during the longer routines. (I’m expecting this to change over the next few weeks.)  Some of the workouts expect dumbells, but I wasn’t prepared.
  • There’s a wide variety of activities from running through Manhattan to performing a Bollywood dance number.  It may take me a month to try them all.
The Sumo Squat: My next challenge

My goal when I started YSFE was to slim down so that I could fit more comfortably in some of my older clothes (I think they shrink over time).  I can’t tell if that’s happening but I can certainly say that my energy level is way up and I think I’m going to try to stick to my every day schedule.  If I can make it to New Year’s Eve, I might actually have enough energy to stay up until midnight this year!

I’ll be posting diary updates every week for the next four weeks.  After that, we’ll be giving away a free copy of YFSE to a random commenter chosen from the comments on one of the five diary posts, including this one.

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My Jeopardy! audition!

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Last January, I took the online Jeopardy! test. (Yes, the exclamation point is part of the name of the show.)  It’s a 50 question test, and they don’t tell you how you did when you take the test.  I knew I missed a few, but not really sure how many (or how many I needed to get right).  I didn’t hear anything from them for nearly 18 months.  Then I got an email that said I was invited for an in-person follow-up audition (and that I had 48 hours to respond or they’d give away my spot.)

Friday at 11:30am was my audition at a hotel in San Francisco.  Well, mine and 20 or so others who passed the online test.  I got there about an hour early (with 5 anecdotes in hand) and was the first one in the waiting room, but people started coming in shortly thereafter.  I’d say most people got there in the last ten minutes before our start time. While we were in the waiting room, filling out paperwork, we’d occasionally hear bursts of laughter or applause from the audition room.  There had been a group that had started their audition at 8:00.  When it let out, one of the contestant coordinators came out and took a Polaroid of each of us. (They’re desperate for more Polaroid film.)  Then he led us into the audition room.

We then all took another 50 question test and once again, they don’t give you any feedback.  But this time, we had a break afterword where we could talk to the other potential contestants (I got a couple right that I wasn’t sure about) before we had our practice games.  They told us about how we’re not supposed to ring in until Alex finishes reading the clue (which I knew), that there are lights that are all around the board that go off when he’s done (which I’d heard) and we’re supposed to keep pushing the button rapidly until someone is called on (which was news to me).

I was in the first group of three to play a quick practice game (less that 15 questions) and I think I did fine.  I phrased all of my responses in the form of questions, and I always selected a new clue quickly after giving a correct response (both things they emphasized).  Then they got to the interview portion of the program.  Each interview was longer than what they do at the show.  (I’d heard that the interview part is heavily edited.) They ask you to tell a little bit about yourself, then they ask a couple question based on the anecdotes we’d turned in.  They finish with asking what we’d do with the money. (“Travel”, is a surprisingly popular answer.)  In a real sense, this is the part that I had been dreading the most.  I don’t generally feel comfortable with small talk, or talking about myself, but I had to do both.  I think I did fine.  I sat down feeling pretty comfortable with my interview.  I wasn’t too quiet and I was myself, only moreso.

When we were done, they told us that if we were selected, we could be called to come down to LA and play Jeopardy! for real anytime in the next 18 months. At this point, I think I did well enough to get on the show. That is, I don’t think I eliminated myself, either with the test or the practice game. Whether or not I’ll actually be chosen, I have no idea.  The audition was fun (I even like taking the tests) and I’m looking forward to seeing some of the other people that I auditioned with on TV (or better yet, I’ll see them in the studio.)

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An enhanced Sieve of Eratosthenes

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This weekend, I showed my two oldest kids how to make a Sieve of Eratosthenes.  The oldest has been doing a lot of factoring, reducing fractions and decimal conversion, and it reminded me of when I learned about prime factorization.  I found reducing fractions to be a lot of guess work until I understood prime factors, and using the sieve not only helped me find prime numbers, but helped me understand factorization in general.

We actually modified ours a bit, since I wanted to focus on factorization, rather than just finding a bunch of primes. On our charts, instead of crossing out the composite numbers, we wrote down the prime factor that would have led to crossing out the number in the normal sieve.  This way, the kids now have a chart that shows, for all the numbers 1-100, either P for prime or the smallest factor otherwise.