The Fat Bloke Diaries

 

Episode Twenty – I Love You, Miss Robot

 

“Push it! Push it!”, “Give me all you’ve got!”, “I’m feeling you!”

 

I’d be a liar if I said that these phrases had never come from my TV speakers before, but those occasions have usually involved movies of a certain ‘artistic’ bent. I’ve certainly never heard these words from Derek, my Wii Fit virtual trainer.

 

But Derek now has a rival; Maya, the dusky beauty featured on a new Wii Fit title, My Fitness Coach. She’s far prettier (to these eyes) than the frankly rather effete Derek, but she certainly makes me work harder. And her words of encouragement are much more varied.

 

Derek had seemed ‘The Man’; the one who, in his perfectly clear received pronunciation, pushed me through my first tentative baby steps of cardio, weight training and yoga. He even challenged me to hold The Plank for longer than him, though I think he was faking it with his struggling groans.

 

There’s nothing fake about Maya however, unless you count her voice, her appearance and her very existence. Even her name means ‘illusion’ in the Sanskrit language. I'm starting to think that she's not all there.

 

I’ve not outgrown Derek’s tuition methods, far from it, but a change is as good as a rest, as they say – unless that change involves too much resting. Maya and her package certainly provide plenty of change.

 

For example there are several choices of music to accompany your work-out routine. Being a gentleman of a certain age, I went for the oldest choice available. Sadly, Renaissance madrigals isn’t one of the selectable styles, so I went for Eighties. Now I know I’m not in the first flush of youth, but how come what they call Eighties music sounds to me like every song that I hear on the breakfast show of my local radio station, Bum-Tish FM. As yet they haven't featured any big-hair power ballads.

 

Despite this minor gripe, My Fitness Coach looks set to replace My Fatness Couch in many people’s lives. It’s certainly becoming a sweat-inducing addition to my personal fat-busting arsenal. And with Maya and Derek’s help, I’m definitely getting fitter. Better still, I want to get fitter. The daily trip up the eight flights of stairs at work is still difficult, but at least when I get to my desk now I can speak, so my recovery time must be improving. The heart rate monitor on my static bike says this as well. After a cycling session it rates my recovery from One (good) to Six (almost dead). I was a member of the Six club for the longest time, but I’ve now become a solid Five and, on one memorable occasion last week I made it into Four territory. I would’ve whooped for joy if I’d had any spare breath. And not been so very British.

 

Whereas Derek-of-the-Wii is restrained and calmly encouraging with his one-by-one selection of exercises, Maya is (as shown by this article’s opening quotes) much more forthright with her support as she leads you in a hyperactive, personally tailored work-out class. He’s a kindly uncle, gently guiding you in the right direction. She’s a Californian New Age Ultra, opening a can of whoop-ass where it’s required. And sometimes it appears I need an entire keg. (I was going to mention Watney’s Red Barrel Party Seven at this point, but I fear that I may be the only person old enough to know what one of those is).

 

The styles of Wii Fit and My Fitness Coach are very different, and will work for different people. Both work for me, depending on the mood I’m in, although I did get a little disillusioned when Maya said, “Great job! You really worked hard today”. I know. I worked so hard that I felt like throwing up. Then she spoiled it by adding, “And you burned 71 calories”. Just 71? That’s almost a double vodka-ful (apologies to any Tony Hancock fans).

 

I’ve done sit-ups and stomach crunches before, but never the way Maya asks me to. Her crunches involve sticking one leg straight out while holding the crunch position, then bringing the opposite knee up towards my chest and reaching to grab the outside of my ankle. I want to say it’s easier to do than describe, but it isn’t. Maya wanted twenty of these, ‘with a pulse’, whatever that means. Hopefully I’d still have a pulse myself at the end of this.

 

I made it to the end of the twenty and collapsed flat out on my back, gasping like a freshly landed salmon. I was just getting my breath back when the voice from the TV demanded, “Right, break’s over. Let’s go again.”

 

She wanted another twenty. I didn’t, not on our first time. Derek was never this domineering.

 

I’m already beginning to dislike her in ways that I never hated him. She’s loud. She’s pushy. She says how much she likes being in her open-air work-out area, which doesn’t exist any more than she does.

 

But I’ll be back for more with her later in the week. She’s got a great bum.

 

© 2009 Shaun Finnie

 

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