South Philly Review

And you thought Mario and Luigi got a workout.

Those Italian plumbers -- who placed the video-game behemoth Nintendo on the map with their computerized jumps, leaps and sprints -- don't hold a candle to Mickey DeLorenzo. While Mario is still rotund, DeLorenzo found a way to slim down the Wii way.

Like many gaming fanatics across the globe, the resident of the 1300 block of McClellan Street immediately snagged a Nintendo Wii (pronounced "we") when it debuted in November. The system has a special remote that allows the user -- through a series of physical movements and a special sensor -- to control characters' actions on the TV screen.

A Nintendo aficionado since a tyke (the original eight-bit The Legend of Zelda is still a favorite), DeLorenzo had no doubt he would love the new console. What he didn't expect was to get an exerting exercise.

DeLorenzo knew he was onto something when he and his fiancé sweated profusely after playing Wii Sports one day. While commenting about the system on his blog, the idea dawned on him: What would be the physical effect if I kept at this?

The Wii Sports Experiment was born.

Without leaving his living room, the resident has boxed and bowled his way to a slimmer waistline. Whacking a tennis racket and swinging a baseball bat also are featured on Wii Sports -- a game DeLorenzo attributes to losing nine pounds (golf, he said, wasn't "cardio-friendly").

Even before documenting his results at www.wiiworkout.net, DeLorenzo's project has been a hot topic for media outlets across the world. Appearing on a New Zealand radio show once the project ended, he received quite the compliment from the announcer: "On behalf of all the blokes out there, we want to thank you for allowing our girlfriends and wives to accept video games in our houses," the gamer recalled.

What is the 25-year-old multimedia developer's opinion of his project's popularity? "It's really taken on a mind of its own at this point," he said. "It's really grown beyond anything I've ever expected."

The six-week project seemed simple enough: DeLorenzo would include 30 minutes of Wii Sports into his daily routine. No dieting, no calorie counting, no additional exercise.

Starting at 181 pounds (a weight he has maintained for two years) Dec. 3, the 5-foot-11 gamer attempted to intensely play four virtual sports during each session (10 minutes of boxing were typically included and he rotated the remaining games). He weighed himself three times a day and constantly calculated his body-mass index, calories burned per session and game, body-fat percentage and heart rate. The information was recorded in a private journal.

Companies who heard about the finished project via his blog sent DeLorenzo freebies, including a calorie-counter and body-fat caliper. According to his data, boxing burned 126 calories per 15-minute session -- the highest of any of Wii's virtual sports.

The experiment ended Jan. 15 and DeLorenzo, who took before and after photos, was astounded.

"You can see a thinner neck, smaller chin," he said. "You actually saw muscle coming through. I was a bit surprised. I thought that I would look the same."

In addition to losing nine pounds, DeLorenzo shed more than 3 inches from his waistline and his body-fat percentage went from 19 to 17.2 percent.

After 21 hours of playing in front of his 42-inch high-definition TV (bought specifically for the Wii), DeLorenzo also noticed another result: his Wii Fitness Age, a term created by the company that determines skill level and is calculated after playing three games consecutively, plummeted from 43 to 20 in about four weeks.

Not bad for a person who has an exercise room in his rowhome -- equipped with a stationary bike and a Bowflex "ripoff" -- that is barely used.

"The system itself pretty much costs less than any gym equipment I can think of," DeLorenzo, who purchased Wii for $250, said. "Half an hour, when [the exercising] is over, you don't even know the time has passed."