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I definitely agree that having computer games and exercise equipment linked is the way to go. I would rather play a sport than work out at the gym. I'd rather play computer games than do pushups at home. They still have room for a lot of improvement, but it's a step in the right direction.

Isometric exercise and/or cardio. Every little bit helps. And building muscle is a great way to reduce fat ( though not necessarily lose weight).

I'm pretty lazy as it is, and overweight, so I received an Eloton Simcycle for my birthday. (About $75-$99 from a Sports Authority or so). It's roughly the size of a medium-sized dog or cat, but the difference between a dog or cat and this Simcycle is that you can pedal on the Simcycle, and the Simcycle is largely heavier and more solidly constructed than most dogs or cats. It's just two pedals on a large solid metal disc, with tension resistance from a nylon strap, in a chrome-plated type get-up.

The interesting thing is that it has a serial-style interface that plugs into Windows PC's and comes with integrated software. Among other usual things (like reporting your speed / time / calories burned), it also has about 7 movies of outdoor courses which you can bike through, and an integrated MP3 player.

Honestly, though, the software don't lend itself well to maintaining attention -- at least for me, anyhow. It makes me think of being on Gilligan's Island, and what would happen if the Professor rigged up a bamboo stationary bike to run a movie projector (which may very well have been an episode).

But if you're looking for something to do while sitting down for hours on end (like I do on the couch while watching 80 channels of nothing on TV), and are content not to burn calories in as dedicated fashion as real exercise, you might try this. There's also apparently a strap you can get to lash your wheeled-chair to the Simcycle in order to stop you from careening off into the other end of the room.

I haven't lost any weight from using this machine, and the thing now prevents my wife from sitting on my end of the couch, but it's fun to show people random technology, I guess.

Slashdot has mentioned this "bike" before, in the context of an accessory, the GameBox, which allows you to control video games (partially) with the pedals.

(I am a medical doctor, but none of this constitutes medical advice, nor is it an endorsement for the product.)

(That being said, one piece of non-medical advice I do tend to give out to patients, and to not follow myself, is to tell people to physically remove their couches from their living rooms and replace them with exercise equipment.)

Did you actually see this contraption, or did he just tell you about it? I had the same idea, but it turned out that someone already created it, and I think it was featured here at one point.

The website is here:
http://www.eloton.com/gamebox.asp

try
eloton - minimal
exergame
fitcentric
cyclefx
velotron
graber

reality keeps interfering with my plans for world domination.

looks like we're still an integration of all the required variables away. close though. 1 year maybe. (ignoring that this still includes no tilt sensing, and no force feedback. ahem)
well, we still don't have pc's capable of playing unreal within the myst world. so...

The second model I bought was the Eloton SimCycle along with its GameBox accessory. This lets you plug the SimCycle into a gameport as the Y-Axis, shared with another gameport controller. This finally offered the experience I wanted.

It's a matter of trial and error to find games that let you configure the Y-Axis as your speed or throttle. The reaction of the PC to changes in your pedaling speed is not instantaneous. I'd estimate there to be a .7 seconds delay. So it's best to use it in games where you are usually going forward but you would like to vary the speed. That generally means racing and flight sims. With a FPS like Unreal it's just not precise enough.

Some of the games I've found to work well are:

• WWII Fighters
• Red Baron 3D
• Falcon 4
• MS Flight Simulator series
• Rowan's Battle of Britain
• Mig Alley
• Panzer Elite
• F1 2002
• Papyrus' NASCAR series
• Need for Speed series
• Driver
• Midtown Madness series
• MechWarrior 3
• RalliSport Challenge
• Superbike 2001

Most importantly, it works very well with Battlefield 1942, controlling my forward motion whether I'm an infantryman or driving a vehicle. In fact, because Battlefield 1942 is such an addicting game, I've been getting a lot of exercise lately! I like it a lot.

Damn, this costs $80.00! See for yourself
This doesn't seem like a product that 'real' gamers are going to be into. Imagine 20 guys with these stupid things playing Quake at a LAN party?!

...for this "simcycle" is here [elonton.com].