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My Health Coach: Manage Your Weight with Free Pedometer (Nintendo DS)
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- Designed to be engaging and fun ! - Create your own personal profile ! - 10 coaching sessions ! - Real life landmarks scales ! - Also features trivia games, hints & tips ! Balance the food you eat and acquire good nutrition habits ! This game comes wi
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4/5 |
Just a bit of fun
(September 22, 2008) |
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I won't waste space by repeating gameplay details, already in other reviews.
The biggest disappointment for me is that you can only have one user's details on the game card. The only other problem is that the game does not take into account the nutritional value of your food intake, only the energy value. So it is not much help for dieters who want to watch how much sugar, fat etc they are having. The game does include quizzes to test your nutrition knowledge, however.
There are a variety of Challenges which are all optional, although the game recommends that you complete at least one per day. Some of these include looking up how to bake something, trying to go 24 hours without junk food or spending a few minutes doing a particular exercise. With the reward of seeing your distance score go up, Jumping Jacks and lunges have never been so much fun!
Another fun aspect of the game is using the pedometer. The game will iniitally challenge you to a couple of thousand steps a day, and the target increases as you achieve it more frequently. Reaching for that big number makes you feel motivated about what might otherwise seem boring exercise!
Due to its lack of precision, I would recommend My Health Coach to someone who wants to challenge their eating habits and enjoy exercise, rather than those serious about losing weight.
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4/5 |
motivation
(September 18, 2008) |
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My Health Coach is excellent overall.
It gives you the motivation to move more, as you want to reach the 6000 steps on the pedometer every day!
There has been criticism about the size of the pedometer, but you don't notice it is there really.
The challenges are very achievable. I suffer from chronic back pain,and can't do things like jumping jacks, so I use 1 kilo weights instead,which shows anyone can benefit from this game.
The presentation is excellent and fun, I love the spiral note pad look!
The advice given is very sensible, especially about food.
The only criticism I have is about measuring your food consumption. It is very approximative and the choice of foods is very limited. It might have been less fun the have a list to choose from instead of feeding a stick person, but it would be more accurate! For instance,when you choose a yogurt,it could be anything between 50 and 300 calories,and things like avocado arent there.
Overall,My Health Coach does exactly what I wanted it to do, which is to motivate me to move more. |
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5/5 |
i think this is great
(August 28, 2008) |
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I love this! I am terminally unfit and overweight and have just joined a gym again for the first time in ages. This "game" actually makes me want to come home and log my results! I feel like there is someone who cares and pats me on the back when I have done well (altho my husband does do this as well!). I like the fact that the food just needs to balance - ie not spending ages detailing every little thing you eat - just a healthy balance.
I think it's fab! |
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5/5 |
The best slimming and health aid ever
(August 09, 2008) |
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I read the reviews on Amazon before purchasing My Health Coach; thank you to the woman who wrote the detailed report, saying it was fun feeding the stick person and seeing it get fat after it had been fed what she ate, it made up my mind to buy it, as it sounded fun. A lot of these things are a big disappointment when you get them home but I am so impressed with this I have recommended it to friends.
What I like about this is its simplicity. The challenges are very do-able. My first one was to stand and sit ten times, and the second was to dance energetically to two songs.
I had read that the pedometer was unwieldy and that the reset button was inclined to be accidentally pressed and lose the data, but I haven't found it so. I was prepared to fish out my small pedometer, as you can use your own if you wish, but I like the DS acquiring my results and resetting the device. If you are worried about losing your score, you can input the steps whenever you want as long as you don't tick 'wrap the day' as that will close off that day's results. I like the countdown on 24 hour challenges as you can see how much time you've got left to complete them. It motivates me when there is a deadline. Best of all, it's unlike slimming clubs, which patronise us by having us clap the loss of so little as one pound(Harvey, on tv, says 'I could CRAP one pound!') and stay silent when those who didn't lose anything, or who(horror of horrors)gained weight, are mentioned. I don't like anything that makes people feel bad about themselves, even it is is by default. This device is nothing like a slimming club. It is totally private, and you are not competing with others but being privately coached to do a little more than you have been doing; making small changes, and not obsessing over food. I like the way it showed that the initial 500 steps you did with the pedometer took only five minutes (you could rack up 300-400 steps during an ad' break).
I like that it measures your progress in distance (rather than slimming club silver and gold stars) as it translates as 'See how far you have come'. If motivation wains you have only to look at how far you have come to want to have that stick figure walk more of your miles on screen. I like this product. It's well thought out. I hope they use it in schools as overweight children would enjoy the fun element of the stick figure doing what it does, and the challenges, but most of all, being in charge of their own health.
But more than that, I have adult daughters who are very weight conscious, thanks to the media; one of them worryingly underweight, and I felt relieved that it is not about calorie-counting or weight, but 'energy in/energy out' and it informs an underweight person why their body needs nourishment. Out of all the weight loss options I have tried, this is the one that impresses me most, because it's simple, it's encouraging, and it doesn't have you thinking about food all the time, but rather, the positive side of making changes; the challenges and the feel-good factor when after you've done them. You get back a sense of your own power. If you have been rebelling against people's attitude to your extra weight, as I have, this little coach is on your side. |
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3/5 |
Very motivating, but don't take it too seriously
(August 07, 2008) |
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This isn't really a game, it's more of a 'personal trainer' in your pocket. The little matchstick people are fun and very motivational, and for once they actually MAKE me want to get off my backside and do some exercise! :-)
Each day you are given four objectives in your Daily Sessions; these are to complete the required number of steps on your pedometer, to do at least one of the daily challenges, to do a certain amount of physical activity and to maintain a healthy food balance. Each one you achieve is ticked off the list and you are awarded 'distance' as your reward.
I do find the pedometer a bit unwieldy to wear all the time but it's very simple just to insert in into the DS and let the program record the steps. You can, however, use a different pedometer and just record the steps manually if you want.
Each day you enter the amount and type of food you've eaten by feeding the items to the matchstick person. Be aware, however, that this part is not terribly accurate, but is only meant to be a rough guide. For example, foods are limited and their calorie content is rounded up or down to the nearest 50 calories; also, you can only pick from standard portion sizes rather than entering the exact amount eaten. If you want to record your calorie consumption accurately then the program is no good, although it does let you have a basic idea of what you eat.
Likewise with the calories burnt through exercise; these are rounded up or down to the nearest 50 calories. I did find, also, that the metabolism they'd worked out for me was way too inaccurate.
All in all, My Health Coach is fun to use and very motivating, which is, after all, half the battle when trying to lose weight. Instead of saying "you have 30 pounds to lose!" which seems a massive task to achieve, it breaks it up into manageable targets; in this, my first month, it has given me a target of six pounds to lose which is far more attainable.
I will definitely continue to use it and see how I get on :-) |
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