Published at 09:08, Monday, 09 July 2012

WE recently met up with friends we haven’t seen for a while, and couldn’t help noticing how gaunt they seemed.

Normally a comfortably chubby couple, they had the greyish pallor and haggard look of the proper poorly.

However, solicitous inquiries revealed they were not in fact really ill, but only victims of a computer virus.

They had between them shed something like the weight of a Chieftain tank by early morning engagement with a computerised keep fit device called a Wii fit board.

Neither could be described as particularly athletic – indeed, one of them had a hip replaced less than a year ago – but he told me he jogged the computer equivalent of 10,000m every morning before his All Bran and banana breakfast.

And that was after a vigorous half an hour of step aerobics, he told me.

I was sceptical, but it was clear that the process worked.

I was vaguely aware that we were the less than proud possessors of a Wii console, inherited, I believe, from one of the sons before he left home, but I had no idea how it worked.

My involvement with computers goes no further than writing articles and playing Scrabble.

I have no aptitude for games which involve human figures, as combat games with the children usually involve my man being beaten to a pulp in a corner, while raining savage karate chops on some harmless pair of curtains.

Nevertheless, soon afterwards, we took delivery of our own Wii board, which arrived with instructions in many tongues.

I couldn’t understand any of them, least of all the ones in English, so we had to wait until sailor son arrived home on leave to plug the machine in and set it to work.

Now unlike me, he is as fit as a lop through regular naval exercises and running round the deck.

There’s not enough fat on him to fry an egg, so it didn’t augur well when he stood on the machine, and it told him that he was overweight.

Perhaps understandably, the device gave an exaggerated yelp of anguish when I got on, and – rather rudely I thought – declared that I was obese.

However, it thoughtfully offered a series of simple exercises designed to shift enough lard to keep Billy Paxton’s chip shop supplied for the next 12 months.

Before officially starting on the programme, I had the onerous task of standing still for three seconds while the board assessed what age my body appeared to be.

I swear there were some Nipponese sniggers in the background when my fit age appeared in flashing lights as 78 ...

“These machines know nothing,” I thundered, but opted to try one of the simple jogging tests to prove the Oriental Oracle wrong.

I had to jog on the spot for just three minutes, but after 30 seconds, I was sweating like a bull and as weak as a kitten.

I was obliged to accept the machine perhaps had a point, so for the past few weeks, I have embarked on yet another fitness regime.

There have been no chips, bread or biscuits, a paucity of pies and only the odd pint.

And the dog thinks it’s her birthday, as I have donned shorts and trainers and essayed the odd stately trot with her on her morning constitutional.

It’s hard to concentrate on running when being pursued by eight million flies, having your legs lashed by nettles and thistles and trying to avoid being tripped by the dog.

However, I’m pleased to report I’m getting more like Paula Radcliffe every morning – I just hope the trees provide better cover than the streets of London.

When not running through the fields, I have stepped up my jogging activity on the Wii, and now clock up 7,500 metres in 20 minutes on a regular basis with my soft shoe shuffle round the Hextol Towers living room, and have lost around three-quarters of a stone.

The Oriental Oracle has been less than impressed though, and after grudgingly reducing my fit age to 75, told me I had put on 6lbs overnight on one occasion.

And it can’t make its mind up about my fit age, which somehow plummeted to 25 on one occasion shortly after I had succumbed to a white Magnum craving.

Despite its patent lack of consistency, and continued rudeness, I have to confess I have become something of a Wii-aholic, and look forward to my daily workout.

Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk