I am unbalanced. The Wii Fit told me so.

I'm totally not going to write exclusively about diet/exercise/training for triathlons any longer, because obviously I don't have too much to say. But ever since I got the Wii Fit, I've been dying to write about it.

I've wanted one of these things since I first heard of it, long before you could even order them in the US. I don't know why - it's not like I don't have a reasonable exercise regime, and I already know I hate working out indoors if I can go for a run outside.

But still, something about it drew me in - so I pre-ordered it on Amazon so I'd get it the day it came available.

I have to say, I'm somewhat impressed with it. It knows I'm unbalanced - it told me so right off the bat!

I know it actually means I put more weight on the right side of my body than my left (which I didn't know before the Wii Fit measured it), but still. Nice translation. And totally accurate anyway.

It also tells me I'm fat. So I know this about myself: my BMI always puts me right on the edge of normal weight and overweight. Some days I'm normal, some days I'm overweight - depending on clothes, time of the month, I ate too much yesterday, or whatever.

So when the Wii Fit weighs me and I come up "overweight" - even though it's BARELY in the overweight category - my little character (called a "Mii") grows a potbelly and looks down at it with a sad expression on her face.

It cracks me up every time - thank goodness I have reasonable self-esteem.

It does bug me, though, that it does that to my kids. Both kids come up as "overweight" even though, in my opinion, they're not fat. They're both solid. You can count Gabriel's ribs, and Camille gets kindy pudgy, then grows like three inches, then gets pudgy again. But neither is skinny. Gabriel doesn't care what the Wii says about him, but I can see the expression on my daughter's face and I know I'm going to be preventing eating disorders for the next 15 years. For now, though, I tell her it's calibrated for adults (a lie) and that she's perfect (the truth).

The games are kinda fun - Camille does a lot of yoga, and you can see her balance and posture improving. Gabriel and I prefer aerobics - I like the step aerobics games, and when I'm alone, I'll hula-hoop; Gabriel loves running. One night he ran around our kitchen island for - I am not exaggerating - 90 minutes. I was like dude, go outside. Seriously. If I wanted to run in place, I would have bought a treadmill and I'd be watching Law & Order re-runs, not listening to cheesy music and watching cartoon characters run.

I'm positive that the game is just a fad for us, just like Wii Sports was. We played a ton when we first got the Wii, like you do any video game, then you lose interest. But at the same time, I have worn my heart rate monitor while playing Wii Fit to see whether it can replace a real workout, and I think it can - though for someone like me who already knows how to exercise and enjoys it, I probably don't need to.

The one thing I wish it would let you do is count non-Wii Fit exercise in the log - it would be nice to be able to keep all of that data together, so even if today I go out and run six miles, I could weigh in on the Wii Fit and tell it I ran for an hour.

But anyway, since I'm not officially training for anything...I really don't need to track stats like that for now. :-)