Eight weeks ago, alit by a digital, celebratory display of animated hoopla, my TV told me I was old and overweight. Upon hearing the news, it took every drop of patience not to chuck a Wii remote through my overpriced flat screen. Once upon a time I was morbidly obese – 476 pounds at age 16 – but over the last twelve years I’ve attained and maintained an athletic, toned 215-pound figure on my 6’4″ frame.

Needless to say it was infuriating to have my brand new Wii Fit, someone I paid $90 to become my fitness pal and confidant, tell me I needed to lose 10 pounds and, that physically, my 29-year-old body was, in videogame reality, 41.

Nintendo launched Wii Fit as a health-minded alternative to passive video game play. Accompanied by a balance board not big enough to accommodate my size 12 feet, it offers users practical applications (yoga, strength training, running, step aerobics) as well as sweat-inducing rounds of hula-hoop, downhill skiing, boxing and tightrope walking. But before the fun begins you must first get weighed and undergo a series of stability tests.

The major failure of Wii Fit is its adoption of the Body Mass Index (BMI) to determine your overall health. One of my friends, a smoker who eats copious amounts of red meat while never working out, scored better than me, a 30-miles-per-week runner, due to the fact he was born Lilliputian. There is no way to adapt the system to account for how fit you are when you begin, which is beneficial for many people who, like me during my unfit days, might have a skewed idea of how fit they truly are.

Once I got past the initial display of incorrect information the game itself became not only fun, but also a testament to my strengths and weaknesses. Balance is not my forte as revealed by my repeated death-defying falls from atop the tightrope strung between two skyscrapers, but the more I did it the better I got. Out of necessity even my posture improved in order to get across the building unscathed.

Hand-eye coordination, however, was my bread and butter – I headed soccer balls at a professional level and found myself overcome by a sense of pride as my Wii friends danced circles around me to celebrate my triumph. Every uncoordinated and/or fat kid in high school dreams of being lauded for their physical talents and finally my dream was fulfilled by a group of avatars.

But that’s not the only dream-come-true achieved during game play: While dressed up as a penguin, I proved myself capable of utilizing both speed and timing in order to consume every fish that jumped out of the water onto my tilting ice block. I mean come on – who hasn’t dreamt of being a penguin?

What I didn’t expect was to learn how to be a better athlete. During my stroll through strength training exercises I was able to improve my push-up form that, before playing Wii Fit, I had no idea needed tweaking. Now, a week later, I’ve got more defined muscles from doing it the right way. My wife and her size-6 feet adore the yoga poses, which are quite tough, but on more than one occasion I’ve gone headfirst over the balance board (either my feet are too big or the board is too small – you decide). When I do nail them, however, I feel a burn that I never have while contorting myself to a yoga DVD.

Two months into usage I’m not sure I’ve gained anything more than a good time and a few additional calories burned (my weight remains 215). David Gosen, the marketing head of the Microsoft Xbox was quoted by Develop magazine saying, “We’ve seen some research that says 60 percent of people who bought a Wii Fit play it once and don’t play it again.” I certainly played daily during the first week, but as time wore on I was more likely to play once a week. The balance board now resides in my hall closet instead of next to the TV.

What truly works with this system when it is used, however, is that it makes exercise – even the extremely light variety offered here – an approachable game with a beginning and end with many milestones tp chart your progress. And, once it’s done telling you you’re overweight, it does make you feel like a winner while you sweat. For anyone just starting out, could there be a better feeling than that?