Thar she blows!

You discover some interesting things about yourself when you are trying out a colon cleansing program for the first time. You’ll find out whether or not you have enough fiber in your diet, whether you’re drinking enough water, and (perhaps most interestingly) that you’re fully capable of taking a close look at the toilet to see if anything interesting is going on down there. When you’re doing this as a review for a web site, you’ll also find out that you’re going to have to write about that particular part of the experiment.

The things I do for you people.

I have completed my first two weeks of the DrNatura Colonix Advanced Internal Cleansing Program. From the point on the post may, at times, devolve into some slightly graphic discussion. I’m not going to get too terribly detailed in those sections, and as I promised before there will be no pictures, but I figured it was wise to get that particular disclaimer out of the way before we went on.

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Am I clean inside?

We’re back!

It took about a week after we got home to fully recover from the utter and complete madness that was Dragon*Con, but your staff here at ShrinkGeek has finally caught up on their sleep and gotten over whatever strain of Con Crud that was running around this year. Unfortunately, for me, there’s still a bit of lingering ick simply due to the fact that, despite my intention to do otherwise, I made some very poor dining choices while we were at the convention. In my defense I really didn’t have a heck of a lot of time to make sure the food I was eating was healthy, though. I was one of the Assistant Directors for the Massively Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Game track and I actually worked 55 hours over the course of the convention. It was fun, but hectic, and when I did have time to grab food I was more concerned with how quickly I could get it than how many calories I was consuming.

The upshot of all this is that I ate a lot of food over Labor Day weekend that I don’t normally eat and I ate way too much of it. I can definitely feel the impact of all that grease, salt, and fat. I’m sluggish, kinda bloated, and my mana bar is almost completely depleted. Now that my schedule is more or less normal again, I really need to buckle down and re-focus on taking care of my body.

Amusingly enough, I got an offer right before we left for the convention that may help me do just that.

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EA SPORTS Active special at Amazon.com: Today only!

EA Sports ActiveIf you’ve thought about picking up a copy of EA SPORTS Active but haven’t pulled the trigger on the actual purchase yet today may be the day to do it.  As part of their “Black Friday Deals Week” Amazon.com is now selling the popular fitness game for only $39.99 (which is $20 off the manufacturer’s suggested retail price).

Amazon is limiting the purchases to one per customer and, if I am reading the site correctly, this offer expires after today (Monday, November 23rd). The odd thing to me is that this is being advertised as a “Black Friday” special. They are calling it a Black Friday Deals Week, but the last time I checked today was Monday, and it’s not even “Cyber Monday.”  I don’t know about you folks, but in kindergarten they taught me that there were seven totally different days in a week, and only one of them was Friday. I just don’t think Friday would be quite as awesome as it is if everyday was Friday.

It is clear that in the mad dash to actually turn some kind of profit in the wake of a horrible economic recession retailers are extending sales well beyond the traditional Day after Thanksgiving madness, but like all things Holiday related the constant push to have the shopping season last longer is getting a bit out of control. Next thing you know we’ll have Black Friday sales in January.

Trish Stratus gets in the fitness gaming ring

Trish StratusYou know, it’s not very often that I get the opportunity to post a picture of a rather attractive and scantily clad woman here on ShrinkGeek and still have the right to claim that my doing so is in the realm of “legitimate” reporting.  Today just happens to be one of those days.

Fitness model and former World Wrestling Entertainment superstar Trish Stratus announced on Thursday that she is partnering up with Frima Studios to produce Stratusphere, an exergame that will focus on using Yoga as a “real workout.”  The game will use the Wii Balance Board along with other peripherals and include video segments of Stratus encouraging the players on.

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Official release date for EA SPORTS Active expansion announced

EA Sports ActiveEA SPORTS announced today that the first expansion to their hit fitness game EA SPORTS Active will be released in North America on November 17th, 2007 (just in time for the holiday season).

As much as I’m looking forward to getting my hands on this particular little expansion I have to admit that the name leaves a lot to be desired.  When I first wrote about the “tropical” theme of the expansion I figured it would be something like EA SPORTS Active: Fitness In Paradise! or something along those lines.  Apparently my marketing mojo isn’t as good as I thought it was because the name for the latest addition to this franchise is a descriptive but less-than-imaginative EA SPORTS Active More Workouts.

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Bringing a NewU To The Exergaming Field

newULogoThere has been a considerable amount of innovation that has surfaced over the last few years in the fitness gaming market.  From dance pads to balance boards game developers are constantly thinking up new ways to get us moving in order to get healthy while we entertain ourselves.  “Exergaming” seems to be one of the next great things in the video game realm and those of us who enjoy the genre eagerly look forward to the next big thing that is going to come down the line.

The folks over at Black Bean Games are hoping they have found the new hotness.

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Tropical Themed Expansion Announced For EA SPORTS Active

EA Sports ActiveWe here at ShrinkGeek are clearly not the only folks excited about the latest fitness game for the Nintendo Wii, EA SPORTS Active. Nintendo announced on Monday that the game sold more than 600,000 units in the first two weeks of being on the market.

With numbers like that it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to learn that Nintendo is already planning to roll out the first expansion for the game in time for the holiday shopping season.

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Two Quick Updates

The Muppet Show's NewsmanThe Virgin Healthmiles program that I wrote about in this post now has a membership program that individuals can sign up for.   The initial fee is $29.99 and that includes the first month, and just like your typical MMORPG there is a monthly fee after that of $12.99.  Considering the fact that you can earn up to $500 in rewards in a year you only have to make it to Level 3 to see a “profit” from that in your wallet (and you’d most definitely see one on the scale).  For more information check out the information and registration page on the Virgin Healthmiles site.

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