Do you Wii? If so, you're not alone and, chances are, you use your Wii for workouts (wii-kouts?) and fitness and not just for games. At the beginning of this year, Wii Sports was touted as the most successful video game of all time and by June of this year, more than 20 million people bought Wii Fit. All this activity is great (and, of course, better than sitting around), but many people wonder: Just how effective is Wii Fit and what can you expect to accomplish?

I've talked to plenty of exercisers who've used Wii Fit and most agree - it's fun, it gets you moving, but it's a fairly mild workout that often falls short of being challenging. The American Council on Exercise agrees, having explored the efficacy of Wii Fit by recruiting 16 men and women, ages 20-24, to test things out. They focused on the most challenging activities including: Free Run, Island Run, Free Step, Advanced Step, Super Hula Hoops and Rhythm Boxing. The researchers monitored oxygen uptake (or VO2 Max), heart rate and rate of perceived exertion and found that:

• The Island Run and Free Run had the highest energy expenditures, burning about 5.5 calories per minute. While these activities got the blood moving, researchers found that these moves weren't sufficient enough to improve endurance as defined by the ACSM. When played for 30 minutes, participants burned about 165 calories.
• The Free Step, Advanced Step and the other activities studied burned about 3.3-3.8 calories per minute but, again, fell short of ACSM's fitness guidelines. When played for 30 minutes, participants burned about 99-114 calories.

Clearly, this study only involves a small group of people and a fairly narrow age group, so some people may indeed find Wii Fit to be challenging depending on their fitness level and situation. What Wii-xercisers do agree on is that Wii Fit is motivating. The interaction, the ability to track movements and the fun activities make it a favorite with a variety of populations. However, while Wii Fit is much better than being sedentary, you do need to more cardio and strength training if you want to meet the current exercise guidelines and manage your weight.

What do you think? Do you use Wii Fit and, if so, how effective do you think it is? Do you use it for exercise or do you do other activities to supplement it? Leave a comment and tell us what you think about Wii Fit.

Read the full ACE Wii study.

More Wii

• EA Sports Active for Wii
• Daisy Fuentes Pilates for Wii
• Jillian Michael's Fitness Ultimatum 2010
• Best Workout Games for Wii

As I write this, the temperature is a rather balmy 60 degrees here in Chicagoland, but with the time change and chill-inducing mornings, many of us are already changing how we exercise. My workouts change as soon as it gets below 45 degrees (or, as we say in the south, as cold as a well-digger's butt), but some people actually like the cold weather - like the guy who runs past my house every morning no matter how cold it is. Perhaps, like other Chicagoans I know, he uses a secret internal heat source that no one will clue me in on.

Indoor workouts can get a little dull if you don't spice things up and it's easy for the pounds to creep on and the energy to drop in the cold darkness of winter.

I'm curious about you. How do you handle the cold weather? Do your workouts change with the seasons or do you keep the same schedule regardless of the weather? Vote in this week's poll and leave a comment to tell us about how you deal with the cold weather.

More About Cold Weather Exercise

• Cold Weather Workout Ideas
• Free Workouts to Try
• Cold Weather Exercise Safety
• Cold Weather Running

I once had a client who, after working with me for about a month, nearly stabbed me with my body fat calipers. The reason?  She had actually gained weight rather than losing it, which, as you can imagine, wasn't our primary goal. While I'm sure many of my clients fantasize about stabbing me (a good reason never to give out my home address), gaining weight after starting an exercise program is something many people experience.

The reason for this weight gain is usually related to the calories in/calories out equation - namely, more calories are going in without them realizing it. That's what happened with my client who, after keeping a food journal, realized she was eating more at her meals than before she started exercising. It was a good thing we found that out before she became physically violent.

There are other reasons we may gain weight including:

• Overstimating calories burned - This is easy to do, especially if you're relying on cardio machines, which aren't always accurate. This is particularly problematic when you're relying on those numbers for weight loss. If a machine tells you you just burned 500 calories, but you really only burned 200, it's easy to miscalculate your calorie needs and overeat.
• Eating too much - Like my client, it's easy for new exercisers to overcompensate for their workouts by eating more. Keeping a food journal can help keep you on track.
• Relying on the scale - When you start exercising, you may lose body fat, which isn't always reflected on the scale. You may be making progress without even realizing it.
• Medical conditions or medications - If you're on certain medications or have a condition, such as thyroid problems, it may be more difficult to lose weight.

There are a number of other areas to look into if you're gaining weight and you can find out more in what's causing your weight gain.

In my experience, weight gain is almost always caused by eating too much, but what about you? Did you gain weight after you started exercising? What was the problem and how did you deal with it? Leave a comment and tell us about your experiences.

While plenty of people struggle to exercise on a regular basis, there is another group of people (or "freaks" as my husband calls us) who actually struggle to take breaks from exercise. For this type of exerciser, completing every workout with 100% effort is the norm. In fact, working at 100% is something this exerciser comes to expect.

But what happens when he catches a cold, or he doesn't sleep well or he's just tired? He may still push himself to the usual levels of intensity despite the fact that his body (and, perhaps, his mind) just isn't up for it. That can lead to unsatisfying workouts, poor performance and a feeling of failure. Over a period of time, it could lead to other problems such as overtraining, depression and burnout.

If you're an exercise perfectionist, you may find it hard to back off of your workouts or take recovery days. You may expect nothing less than perfection, even when perfection is out of reach. You may constantly worry about failure and ignore even your smallest successes.

Does any of this sound familiar to you? Are you an exercise perfectionist? If you're not sure you can take this quiz to, perhaps get some insight into what makes you tick.

Be sure to leave a comment and tell us about your perfectionist tendencies and how you overcome them.