Archive for the Testimony Category

Reader Frank Golbadov mailed us his incredible story on his recovery process from testical cancer. He found out that he had testicular cancer in november 2006 but he was lucky that he had discovered it in an early phase. He went through a lot of pain after the operation and during the chemotherapy but his Nintendo Wii helped him to forget his pain and his cancer. Today he still uses the Wii to stay in shape and the console made the relationship with his family and friends a lot stronger. A touching testimony that should be used as an example by other people who are going through the same hard period as Frank.

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Frank Golbadov
In november 2006 I felt a lump in my scrotum. At first I thought that it was just nothing and it didn’t really hurt in the beginning too. I didn’t tell my wife because I knew she would panic. Each time I went in the shower I touched the mass in my left testicle. Two weeks later the lump on my testical was bigger, and that’s when I panicked. I didn’t wait a minute longer and told my wife about it. After she felt the lump too, I made an appointment with my doctor.

The doctor was 100% sure from the very second he made his diagnose. The bad news was that I had testical cancer, but the relatively good news was that they discovered it in an early phase. But still, I started thinking: Why me? Testical cancer is really rare, it accounts for only 1 percent of cancers in men but I’m 32 now and about 75% of all testical cancers occur between the age of 20 and 42. Fortunately we discovered it early and the doctor guaranteed me that it could be cured. I had heard before about the really painful treatment for testical cancer so I was prepared to go through a lot of pain. Luckily, I have a supporting family and then there was the Nintendo Wii helping me to stay in shape and forget about my pain.

One day after that I went to a specialist for a more specific diagnosis. I was told that my left testical had to be removed or the cancer would have spread to other parts of my body. Six days later I had an operation and after that I felt really bad. Before my cancer I was a very proud guy, always wearing nice clothes, taking good care of my skin, body weight, muscles, etc. but after they removed my testical I didn’t feel male at all. The pain was really bad in the beginning too and I started to work my frustration out on my wife and son which is off course a bad thing.

I had to stay two more weeks at the hospital to recover from the operation and it was still as if my scrotum was burning. My kid visited me with the new toy he got for his birthday; the Nintendo Wii. I wasn’t really in the mood to play on it but I played a game of baseball with him anyway to please him. I was actually having a good time and I actually forgot that I had cancer and an awful pain in my scrotum. He left the Wii system on my room when he left and after five minutes I was already playing a second game of baseball. One of the nurses even joined me and owned me in Wii.

The next day I was already feeling a lot better and when my son came by we played some more on the Nintendo Wii. He said I could have it until my cancer was gone. I had to promise to him that I would heal fast because he really wanted his Wii and his daddy back. Dennis, one of the nicest guys ever, had been in the hospital for several times because of lung cancer. He had lots of difficulties with his memory but I had the impression that the Wii was actually training him to memorize better. The doctors gave me permission to go home after two weeks, as they had planned, and my family was glad to have me and the Wii back. I was still a little scared for the chemotherapy but it went a lot better than I had expected.

I had a lot of nausea and skin irritation but luckily I didn’t have much hair loss problem. One of the other things that I didn’t like about the chemo therapy was no sex, I had to lose my energy in something else; the Nintendo Wii again! In the meanwhile we already Wario Ware: Smooth Moves, another game that made me shake my hips in the living room. I ate well, took vitamines, did all of my chemo’s and by January I already felt a lot better. I took my last chemo on May the 5th and now I’m a healthier man than ever! I thank the lord and the doctors for the good treatment and all of my family members and friends who got me through that difficult period.

It sounds strange, but I wouldn’t have recovered without my son his Wii. The Nintendo Wii kept me in shape and made me forget about my pain and cancer. My family situation stayed healthy as well thanks to the many games of baseball I played with my son and off course the tennis matches with my lovely wife. I still play it now to keep myself in shape and I’m really looking forward to Wii Health Pack! I’d recommend anyone who has extreme pain to work out with Wii Sports and Wario Ware: Smooth Moves. I’d be happy to help others out using the Wii in their healing process of whatever disease.

Digg this story

Stephen is a child who whas born with cerebal palsy. He is unable to talk or walk but the Wii videgamesystem and Wii Sports allow him to play some baseball against his little sister. There are many people out there with a handicap that play on the Wii system and have a great time with it.

This is a guide that we have build for people to use to lose weight by playing Wii Sports for the Nintendo Wii. We have composed this schedule and tested it multiple times on people with different lifestyles, different weight categories, different ages and different sexes. Numbers based in this guide are an average of the results we got from those people. Some people will be losing weight easier than others, keep this in mind while working out this program. A lot depends from the way you will be playing games. This is a 10 week program; each day you should be playing about 30-45 minutes active Wii Sports. If you have anyway questions about this guide, suggestions or problems, just mail us or leave a comment.

Before you start with the program, make sure you weigh yourself to compare with the end result. Some people do it more fanatically and also measure their Body Mass Index, calories burned per session/game, body fat percentage, heart rate (at rest) and took note of additional notes or soreness. When it’s the first time you’ll start up the game you won’t have any Wii Fitness Age, but when you’ve already played the game and decided to start with the program, note done your Wii Fitness Age as well.

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1. Getting started

To get started with this program you’ll need a few things. Here’s a list of what exactly you need to work out:
- A Nintendo Wii console, which comes with a free copy of Wii Sports ($249,99)
- A TV, beamer, monitor with VGA box. A screen that allows you to play Wii-games on (Available in all price categories)
- A room as big as possible
- This (almost) perfect guide to lose weight

Off course there are many other things and extra’s that come in handy for training with the Wii. Friends and family members to play with are a big plus, but not necessary. Just make sure that you are installed and that you feel comfortable when playing. For playing on the Wii it’s not necessary to wear a sportoutfit. Make sure you wear clothes you feel comfortable in, preferably a sportingoutfit. Just don’t wear shoes with high heals and twenty sweaters.

See what time is the best for you to train. Maybe you won’t be in the mood to play when you just came home from work or school. Don’t play when you’re tired in order to get the best results out of this program. Try to put a fixed time on your sessions so that your bodyclock won’t be whole messed up. Just make sure that you’re comfortable and that you’re ready to have some fun. Remember that this program is about having fun and losing weight at the same time.

2. Get familiar with the Nintendo Wii

If you have never set up a videogame system, check the manuals that came with the console or check forums to ask help to other gamers but normaly even a non-gamer should be able to install it. The second part is to get used to using the WiiRemote and Nunchuk. There aren’t any booklets to help you with that since everything figures itself out. Make sure you stand in front of your television and that the sensor bar and everything else is set up right. Once you know how to use the controllers, startup the Wii Sports disc and let the fun begin!

Choose a Mii character to get started with and we strongly recommend you to keep using the same Mii to check your progress. This little puppet will be carrying all your scores, your fitness statistics and so on. Pick whatever sport that interests you the most to kick off with. Every sportsegment of the game starts with a very good tutorial that makes you go through all the steps of that sport. Take your time for it, read the tips and you’ll already be a top Wii sporter before you have even started. We recommend that you first try all the sports out before starting the workout schedule. Pick out a favorite that you will do most of the time in this segment.

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3. Let’s lose weight!

Everything will depend on how strict you follow the schedule, how active you play and what sport you prefer to play. If you play slow, watch replies and stuff like that you won’t be losing the amount of calories stated below. You can off course choose for a combination of sports, this is just an example of what the results are when you play it when you follow these instructions.

Under this paragraph you see a table with the five different sports, the time you should play per day for ten weeks long and the numbers of calories you should be burning if you play active. Don’t worry if the results are not as displayed in this table. Remember that some people will lose weight easier than others so keep going because anyone can lose weight with our program. After a few days you will be able to play a lot better and the number of calories you’ll burn will go up.

Sport	Playtime	Calories burned
Boxing	15 minutes	121

Boxing is the most active game on the Wii Sports disc. We strongly advise very heavy people not to go too wild in this one since your heart rate will go up a lot. This could be a problem for people who have been advised not to do big efforts. The fact is that this is the perfect game to lose weight. In a couple of minutes you can burn easily 121 calories in 15 minutes time. So this is a rather fast method and you can even speed it up by using a Mii version of a person that you don’t like as an opponent! Keep moving, move from the front to the back, from left to right. Try punching your enemy from different angles, different types of punches and you’ll be sweating that body fat away. Make sure to keep the wrist strap tight!

Sport	Playtime	Calories burned
Tennis	25 minutes	110

Tennis is the second best game to lose body weight. In this game it’s not necessary to move your body from left to right and back to front and that makes it less tiring. Try to play long games and play close to the net so that you’ll have to hit the ball faster. There are some nice tricks to make this the ultimate Wii Sports weight loss game. When setting up the game, just choose to control one of the two opponents as your player as well. You’ll have three Mii’s this way and you can even make the fourth one your tennisplayer as well. This is only recommended for people that are real tennis masters, but just keep in mind that this is all possible. Also, try to hit smashes since this will speed the game up as well.

Sport	Playtime	Calories burned
Bowling	30 minutes	104

Bowling comes on number three since this game doesn’t require that you move with your whole body. When playing this activly you can however lose weight by just swinging your arms and doing some cool moves while throwing your bowling ball. Don’t just move your polses around but swing the ball away with an arm movement. Go for strikes and spares and swing your ball with power, but don’t waste your time on aiming your ball in the right direction. Try clicking the reviews away fast and compete other people in this game since bowling is a perfect game to play with your family.

Sport	Playtime	Calories burned
Baseball	35 minutes	102

Baseball comes in fourth since this game is also a lot about watching your Mii run around the field and there aren’t many opportunities to use your whole body in this game. In our testing we haven’t had many people who played this game to lose weight and it won’t make you a real Wii Sports addict. You can play it every now and then to get some variation, but it won’t train your muscles or burn much calories.

Sport	Playtime	Calories burned
Golf	45 minutes	99

Golf is a nice and relaxing sport but we recommend you not to put this discipline in your program since you’ll have to spend to much time on losing a small amount of calories. You can fitch it in for some variation, but don’t do the whole weight loss project with only this sport. You have to focus too much on getting your ball to the end of the course and there just isn’t any way to play this game really active. A swing with your golfclub will make you lose some calories, more than that you won’t get out of it. Still a nice sport though, just not something to make you sweat.

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5. Some general tips

- One of the things you absolutely have to avoid is frustration. If you’re getting a little frustrated, switch over to Wii Boxing to lose some steam and if that doesn’t work, put the controllers away and just do something else. Taking a walk to catch some fresh air is the best way to lose the heat or just play another fun Wii-game that doesn’t require much physical input.
- When you start to get bored off Wii Sports during this program, DON’T give up! There are many ways to make Wii Sports more fun and challenging. Try some new Mii’s out, check out some other sports, change some of the game settings to make it more fun and exciting, compete a roommate, family member or friend or try some of the neat Wii Sports accessories to make it more realistic and more fun. Convince non-gamers to give it a shot and have a good laugh at them when they suck at the game!
- Try to teach your pet how to play Wii Sports. We’ve seen in several movies that dogs, cats and other nice animals can even play Wii Sports, the game is that simple to learn! Don’t get pissed when your dog gets better in it than you…
- Play as active as possible. Try to move with your whole body and not just your arms, do the mimics . Wii Sports is a game that’s made for standing in front of your TV so don’t be lazy and sit like a bag of potatoes in your sofa.
- Don’t be too fanatic in this program. Playing longer than suggested in this guide won’t kill you, but remember that Wii Sports uses a lot of muscles in your body. Always put on your wrist strap since we all know what can happen if the WiiRemote slips out of your hands! Stretching before you start training
with Wii Sports is a good way to warm your muscles up.

6. Wii Fitness

The Wii Fitness feature in Wii Sports is a great way to measure your progress in this trainschedule. Every sport itself gets three sort of minigames so in total that makes 15. In tennis for example your opponent will constantly be hitting balls and you’ll have to hit back as many as possible in order to get a younger Fitness Age, in bowling you get more cones to knock on the ground, in boxing you have to punch more etc. More new challenges and some nice statistics to see how you are evolving.

7. After the Wii Sports Weight Loss program

Review your weight loss program, check how many weight you’ve loss, what your heart rate is when resting, check your Wii Fitness Age, check your pro scores and try to compare your results with the reports of other Wii weightloss friends. If it didn’t work out like you had hoped, don’t give up and learn from your mistakes. Perhaps give us some feedback about this guide or ask us to give you some advise for a second attempt. You can send us pictures from before or after and we’ll add them to our website with your story about the Wii Weight Loss project. Share your experiences with other Wii owners so that everyone in the world knows that Wii sports is a fun way to lose a few pounds. Since you should be playing 30-45 minutes per day, these new challenges will be more than welcome!

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8. First reviews from our readers

Carl:

Before (01/01/2007)
Weight: 248
Waist: 46″
Body fat: 32%

After (05/05/2007)
Weight: 218
Waist: 43″
Body fat: 22%

Above are the statistics of my bodyweight, waist dimensions and the percentage of my body fat all before and after. I started soon after my son bought his Nintendo Wii and got hooked on and decided to start the New Year with a Wii Sports training. It didn’t went well in the beginning but after two weeks I started to get the hang of the games and knew how to use my entire body in these games. My favorites were Wii Boxing and Wii Tennis and I kept challenging myself in the Wii Fitness Age program. I really recommend that plan since it gives you nice statiscs of your evolutions. I’m going to keep training with Wii Sports and I advise this program to anyone!

Melany:
Pictures removed due to complaints about the girl being to skinny after the Wii program.

Hey guys I just want you to know that I really love the Wii Sports game and its fun factor. I really like jogging and all but I wanted something new and this Wii was something fresh that I wanted to try out. I’m 24 now and wanted to go from 100 lbs to 92 lbs and I did it in only four six weeks! I have been playing a lot in that period and invited some friends over to have a chat and play some on the Wii. I really loved tennis, a sport that I have practised when I was still a kid. My score is 1085 now and I’m still trying to do better. I was able to lose weight with Wii Sports on a fun way and all of my efforts were rewarded. I’m glad this guide got composed and I would suggest that everyone loses weight with this new program.

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9. Closing comments

If you have any questions, suggestions, tips or experiences to share, drop a comment on this article or send us an email. Soon we will have a forum where we users will be able to share experiences and reviews with each other. I want to thank all people who helped build this guide and Nintendo for making the coolest videogame system ever!

Nintendo is currently working on another amazing game that will allow you to lose weight while having tons of fun with Wii Fit and the Wii Balance Board. Check the site for updates on upcoming exergames.

At Spilling Coffee there’s an interesting article about losing weight with the [tag]Wii[/tag]. He says that [tag]Wii Sports[/tag] isn’t the only way to lose weight by videogaming, but it is one of the most fun ways to lose weight. This is very important in the whole weight dropping thing with the Nintendo Wii; keep it fun and make it last as long as possible. If you’re getting agitated at a certain point, put the controller away and go catch some air or do something else to relax. Since a lot of gamers have to deal with overweight and are crazy about the new machine, [tag]Nintendo[/tag] has really invented a cure.

hey_suburbia from WiiNintendo.net spend 30 minutes a day playing [tag]Wii Sports[/tag] from December 3rd 2006 to January 15th 2007 to see what effect the program had on his body, if he was having any pain, how his weight evolved, what his [tag]Wii Fitness Age[/tag] would be at the end, etc. In six weeks he lost nine pounds by playing one half an hour of Wii Sports every day! He kept a blog about how his [tag]Wii Sports Experiment[/tag] was evolving and off course for weight losers like us this blog is a source of information and tips.

Mickey DeLorenzo’s BMI (Body Mass Index):
- Before: 25.2
- After: 24.0

Mickey DeLorenzo’s Body Fat:
- Before: 19%
- After: 17.2%

Mickey DeLorenzo’s Heart Rate:
- Before: 82
- After: 68

He kept record of the average of calories he burned on every part of Wii Sports. In a close second came Wii Tennis with 92 calories during a 15 minute period. He burned the lowest amount of calories on Wii Bowling, ‘only’ 77 calories during a 15 minute period. Wii Baseball isn’t really a sport that was made for losing weight so let’s just keep that one out. The clear winner in the average caleroy test is off course Wii Boxing with 125 calories during a 15 minute period. Note: he played agressively in order to reach the maximum. Be sure to keep it safe!

A nice compilation of the Wii Sports footage he shot during his experiment

The conclusion he made on his blog is a really nice one:

I’d like to think that my experiment proves one or two things:

A.) You get back whatever you put into something.
b.) Video games can and are a great way to have exercise and not even know you are burning calories.