[Feature] Getting Solid with Solid Jack (a Fitness Boxing Blog) – Entry #1: The Punching Begins

Hi there, I’m Jack Longman of Miketendo64 and I have made a serious mistake. Having eaten way more than I should have during the holiday period and looking for new ways to get back into shape after doing my knee in a few years ago, I agreed to do a weekly blog of my exploits with Fitness Boxing for the Nintendo Switch, but that isn’t the mistake.

The mistake was underestimating Fitness Boxing in its entirety when comparing it to what could be experienced in the demo. I’m not for one minute going to try and sell it to you as the greatest fitness game in the world, especially since I have only played 104 minutes of it, but there is more to it than meets the eye.

Still, before I get into what the game does offer since I am playing this game in the hopes of seeing if it can help me lose weight, it’s time to set some goals. Only when I say “goals” I actually mean “goal” since I only have the one and as you could probably guess, I am aiming to lose some weight.

The reason for this is because I am overweight and I can’t believe I’m about to admit this, but I weigh 106 kilos (just under 16 stone and a half stone.) What makes my current weight even worse, is that before I joined Miketendo64, back in May 2015, I weighed 64 kilos (just under 10 stone and 1 pound.)

Since doing my knee in due to pushing it too hard with uphill jogging and speed running, I have truly let myself go and it would be one thing if I was older than I actually am, but I’m 26, soon to be 27 and it’s time for a change.

There is no guarantee that Fitness Boxing will be able to help me out, but if I could lose at least 6 kilos (just under a stone,) in the next two months, then that would be a huge step in the right direction. Should I lose more than that though, well that would be a huge bonus, but for now, I am going to remain negative and what will be, will be.

Moving on, it’s now time to point out what I would like to achieve with this little blog. Once a week, for two months, I will post a new blog update every Tuesday that highlights how I spent the last seven days playing the game and what I have achieved. I’ve never done this sort of thing before though, so you might have to be patient with me as I try to get into the swing of things.

As well as just typing words, I will also be doing the occasional completely unedited video, as part of a vlog on YouTube, just to show off the game and the fact that I am indeed playing it. Furthermore, since this is a weekly feature, although I will tell you about the game, this is not a review. A review for Fitness Boxing will be posted separately, after I have spent an adequate amount of time with the game and seen if it has been able to help me lose some weight.

Now that we’ve got all of that out of the “weigh,” let’s begin. First and foremost, for those of you who are unaware, Fitness Boxing is a sports and rhythm game developed by Imagineer and published by Nintendo for the west. In it a lot of ways, it looks and feels like Wii Fit, but with more of a focus on boxing.

Just because there is a large emphasis on boxing, it doesn’t mean you can’t get a full body work-out from it, as not only can this game help you to burn a few calories, but if you push your workouts too much, you will feel the strain in your muscles. Heck, if it wasn’t for the fact that my arms felt dead for half an hour after my first work-out, this blog entry would have been written sooner.

Since today is my first day of playing the game, I haven’t done too much with the game, but while it does have a limited number of tracks in the game (20) and they are not songs I am particularly fond of, one nice feature the game does have is the fact there are a total of 6 instructors for you to choose from and they can be customised.

Wait, customised? Oh yeah, be it changing their hair colour, eye colour, skin colour, or unlocking new clothing for them, there is some variety to what you can do in Fitness Boxing, but a lot of it will need to be earned.

You see, while some outfits could require something like throwing a total of 181,500 punches, getting a specific number of stars for the workouts you’ve completed, or stamps, you will need to put the time and effort into playing Fitness Boxing, to get the full benefits. So, just like with losing weight in general, there are no short-cuts.

So, because it is day one for me, one of the first things I did was the Daily Workout to find out my Fitness Age and I’m 30. It’s not great, but it is better than what I thought it would be and from that point on, I became all about Free Training for single player.

Out of a 104 minutes of Exercise Duration, around 74 minutes was spent working out to a song as I did Straight Combo #1 twice (once on low intensity and once on high), Straight Combo #2 once and then followed that all up with Hook Combo #1, Hook Combo #2, Uppercut Combo #1, Uppercut Combo #2, Beginner Combo #1 and Beginner Combo #2.

The latter is the only one I didn’t get all 3 stars on, but I’ll play it again sometime and try again. After doing all of those mentioned above, I did a few more that have slipped my mind, before finishing our workout with 30 minutes of “Choose Workout by Goal.” The first was 10 minutes focused just on chest and then I did a 20 minute long workout that was just focused on Full Body.

20 minutes is not the only setting you can choose, as you can pick up a 30 and a 40 minute long session, but baby steps and all that. By the time I did call it quits though, although I was feeling aches and pains within 15 minutes of starting, during a period of 2 hours, 1 hour and 44 minutes were spent working out and I definitely feel good about what I have achieved, especially since I threw 3,465 punches and am estimated to have burned 1,326 calories in total. So, let’s make those numbers official shall we:

Solid Jack’s Fitness Boxing Statistics: (Day 1)

Current weight: 106 kilos

Exercise Duration: 01:44

Estimated Calorie Burn: 1,326 kcal

Punches Thrown: 3,465 punches

Best Fitness Age: 30

 Still, that’s enough writing for one day, it’s time for some action. Only, because the game does not capture screen on video capture, here are two let’s play kind of videos, of myself playing the game, which has been shared to YouTube:

To those still here who are still reading, thank you for indulging me by reading this entry. It is the first steps on a new journey and I hope you see you all again for Entry #2!

Until next time, keep on gaming!