Fitness Quest Take Three, or is it Four?

A couple days ago H looked at my stomach and said, the milk in your booby went into your belly. I don't know if he was commenting on the fact that my breasts have shrunk since I weaned R or if he was just trying to explain why my stomach was so large. And so, I got the kick in the stomach I needed to get out the exercise mat. The Wii Fit Plus yoga mat to be exact. I recently received a Wii Fit Starter Kit to review from Performance Design Products, headquartered in nearby Sherman Oaks, CA. I hadn't taken it out of the package but H gave me the incentive I needed to take it up a notch in my Wii Fit routine. I've been doing the Balance Games and bypassing the yoga option. If you had a choice between a hula hoop game and the tree pose, which would you pick? Precisely. But if you're serious about core strengthening, you have to fire up the yoga, be it bikram or otherwise.

Performance Designed Products is an industry leader in designing and manufacturing peripherals for all major video game platforms, including PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii, GameCube, DS Lite, XBOX 360, and XBOX. PDP has been supplying video game accessories to the U.S. market for over a decade. The Wii Fit Starter Kit is manufactured and sold under the Pelican brand name. It retails for $29.99 on Amazon, which includes shipping. I've seen it for $19.99 at Gamestop, which ends up being less (after tax) if you buy it at the bricks and mortar store, but about the same as the price on Amazon if you have to pay for shipping by buying online.

The Starter Kit comes with a yoga mat and a fitted neoprene sleeve to protect the Wii Balance Board and cushion your feet. For anyone with young kids, the cover is essential. When I put on the cover, I noticed R had spilled grape juice on the Wii Fit board. Not sure what the board was doing out since Stewart "hid" it under the couch, but if you want to extend the life of your Wii Fit balance board, definitely get a cover. The yoga mat gave me the push to do a yoga routine on the balance board. Since our living room is carpeted, this actually helped a lot because it prevented my feet from slipping all over the place.

So I think the Starter Kit is helpful if the user of the balance board is likely to use it for yoga on Wii Fit Plus or for stretching and working out with other Wii fitness games like EA Sports Active and Jillian Michaels Fitness Ultimatum. I know you can drip sweat at the end of one of the hard aerobic workouts featured on those games, so a yoga mat is especially nice to stop you from getting sweat all over your carpet. The protective cover is a great idea for anyone with young kids or old kids (husbands/boyfriends) who spill things. I'm thankful to Performance Designed Products for giving me another tool to help me get my butt (and stomach) in gear. Maybe one day God will appreciate my efforts and give me the opportunity to review Charm City Cakes when they open their LA location. Here's to hoping!