which to believe?

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I bought the Wii Fit Plus today and it has a calories burned feature. As it turns out, I'm burning off half of what I thought I was using the Calories Burned calculator on line (http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc) in which I plug in my weight and how many minutes of which activity I do. For example, I weigh in at 295 and I do 60 minutes of low impact step aerobics which equals out to 938 calories burned. But I do an hour on the WF+ and it tells me that I've only burned 400-something calories.

So, which do I trust?

It's pretty disheartening to think I'm only burning off a candy bar as opposed to a full meal.

Does the wiifit have a weight calculator in it?

Honestly it doesn't really matter what the specific number is. As long as you do something that gets you active for a good hour or more a day, you'll lose weight and feel better. I did that with skating for an hour or so a day, plus later on some separate working out, and I went from 215 to 180 pounds. So just do it as much as you can, as long as it's fun, and just see what happens. Calorie counting is going to be different, too, as you get used to the activity and it's less resistance. Like now that I'm a better skater I can do 3 laps in a minute, whereas before it would take me over a minute to get one lap in, but I'd feel like I was dying getting the one lap in and don't feel that way with 3 now. Just have fun with it and don't worry too terribly much about numbers. If anything, just watch the numbers of what you eat a bit more instead, as you can much more accurately gauge that, and I could never like, "plan" calories in a meal, but instead I'd just go "I don't need this..." after seeing it had 400 calories or something. Or I'd go "wait, I could eat boiled potatoes and some eggs instead of this candy bar." Stuff like that.

don't forget to use your mind as well! It's real powerful.

My wife has a Wii fit, and honestly, it's a great tool to get you to do a cardio workout, but there are too many variables to allow the calorie counter to be accurate.

And with that said, calorie-counting, IMHO, is a waste of time and an OCD behavior, unless you are a diabetic or with other illnesses which demand exact nutrition delivery. Otherwise, forget the calculators, and just concentrate on what quality of food you eat, and what you drink. It's not as much how many calories you eat and burn, as it is how many protein calories vs. fat calories, and so many other things.

Here's a tip: Eat 5 or 6 SMALL meals a day, and don't skip meals. Skipping meals and hardline dieting cause obesity! A body will be tricked into going into starvation protection mode, and will store every extra calorie it can get hold of. If you eat constantly through the day, your body will be tricked into just dumping out extra calories, as food sources seem unlimited to the body in that case. At each meal, stop eating BEFORE you feel full. A human being does not feel "full", until 20 minutes AFTER the stomach has enough food in it. In other words. Try it! If you feel like a big sandwich and bag of chips and a soda, just cut off and eat 1/4 of the sandwich, and eat a half a handful of chips, and drink water (or iced tea, or other liquids than pop). WAIT 20 minutes, and see if you're stuffed! If not, you can always eat more... You just can't UN-eat anything.

Charles (not an expert, but was a little heavy, and now am age 44 with 5% body fat, and been this way for 3 years and counting)

Thanks Charles!

How often and for how long should I do the stepping routine on the wii fit? I'm guessing three or four times over the course of a day.

I figure if I maintain a calorie deficit of 11-1200 calories a day, I should get to my goal weight by this time next year. And I do want to sweat my ass off doing it. I love to sweat!