Ding! Down four pounds, a pant size and a belt! I had no idea I’d see any sort of results so quickly. I’m also realizing that since I’ve so completely associated WoW with the concept of working out, I’ve been able to work out a lot longer than I ever would have been able to without an enjoyable activity as a focus. The minor downside is that my lats and pecs started burning just from reading a FAQ about quests in the Ghostlands.
For those of you just joining my quest here, I’m trying to lose weight playing World of Warcraft. It’s not a new concept, but I don’t think anybody has tracked it quite like this.
So I’ve gone from barely being able to get an hour of biking in to getting into arguments over TV time with the wife because I want to do two-hour biking sessions–to the point that I’m looking to purchase a decent gaming laptop. This is on top of the purchases that I’ve already made for this little project:
InStride Cycle XL ~$35
World of Warcraft Battle Chest ~ $40
Wrath of the Lich King ~ $40
Logitech Wireless Keyboard and Mouse ~ $40
Keyboard tray ~ $35
“Quality” Pedometer ~ $5
Two pair workout shorts ~ $12
Recap on the rules:
I’m going to be weighing myself each day after my morning shower.
I’m going to add pushups to the routine: ten five knuckle pushups at the character select screen, ten five pushups each time a quest is completed and ten five knuckle pushups when I log off.
My goal is one full, uninterrupted hour of WoW/biking per day. I may not be able to play a full session every day, but since I also have an exercise bike at work, (and WoW installed on a tablet PC) I’ll try to at least get in some time on my lunch hour and some time spinning my peddles.
I’m going to be also charting steps with a pedometer and my character’s level, and a short writeup of my gaming experiences.
Follow me on Twitter for daily updates and watch this website for weekly ones, or join me in-game as Kalorie on Sentinels. My weekly summaries include stats for each day, and unedited notes made at the end of each day’s workout cycles.
Week One Summary
Day One – 8/3/2009
Weigh in – 214.6 lbs. | 30 Pushups | 65 Min Biking | 7752 Steps | Character Level : 4-5
Sort of actually disappointed today, even though I have record steps, enjoyed the game time I had. The biking is getting easy. Next week, I will increase the tension slightly. I am actually considering getting a REAL recumbent bike for this.
Day Two – 8/4/2009
Weigh in – 213.2 lbs. | 30 Pushups | 90 Min Biking | 3309 Steps | Character Level : 7
Reached level 7. Got on a groove on the bike, went way past 60 minutes and kept going until I hit 90. Way fun, but my chair is getting uncomfortable on the bike.
Day Three – 8/5/2009
Weigh in – 213.0 lbs. | 30 Pushups | 60 Min Biking | N/A Steps | Character Level : 7
Still level 7. Can’t seem to find any quests near Silvermoon. Pedometer only registered something like 300 steps, so I’m getting a new one. Utterly exhausted after today. May need to take a day off soon.
Day Four – 8/6/2009
Weigh in – 214.2 lbs. | 30 Pushups | 70 Min Biking | 10374 Steps | Character Level : 9
Morning notes: Feeling somewhat defeated. The stats are showing no progress, but I can see a pretty big change in my body. Lowering the amount of time I do in one set on the bike today because I’m really sore. Took two ibuprofen at lunchtime.
Evening notes: Felt MUCH better after eating lunch & dinner. Was easily able to finish my goal for the day and get a bunch of WoW in. Got some nice feedback from Tweeple.
Day Five – 8/7/2009
Weigh in – 213.6 lbs. | 30 Pushups | 70 Min Biking | 9155 Steps | Character Level : 11
Glad I kept going. Did a straight hour on the bike for the first time today, and didn’t even break a sweat. Started mining and jewelcrafting, really getting into this whole thing. Went for a nice, long walk after the gametime tonight. Oh, and bought WOTLK. It’s an investment in my health, right?
Day Six – 8/8/2009
Weigh in – 213.6 lbs. | 75 Pushups | 120 Min Biking | 4260 Steps | Character Level : 15
Pretty sure I overdid it tonight. Did 2 full hours. First 90 min or so was continuous. Pushups were done at the ends of my two play sessions. Didn’t walk too much today. I’m pretty nauseated after today’s grueling session. I’ll probably do a short workout tomorrow. Hit level 15, did a crapload of quests. Starting to have trouble with the enemies in Ghostlands.
Day Seven – 8/9/2009
Weigh in – 214.6 lbs. | 30 Pushups | 90 Min Biking | 7251 Steps | Character Level : 16
Took it easy and slow, hadn’t realized I went way past an hour, kept going until I hit 90. I’ve come a long way. Wife agreed to go for a long walk each night with me when I’m finished for cooldown. Still sore from the quest pushups, but the quests are getting longer and more difficult, so that’s fine. Hit level 16, and got 50 gold from a friend, so no longer having trouble soloing. I did have to take some ibuprofen at the end of the day. Still no real weight loss, but that’s alright. I’ve had to buy a new belt and clothes already, so there’s been a big change.
Here's my character's fine backside. LFG!
RE: Day 4 defeated attitude.
If you’re going to truly lose weight and keep it off, you’re going to have to look further down the road than four days into your new regime. Daily weight fluctuations can be attributed to a great number of things: sodium intake, water intake, foods you eat, etc.
What I’m more curious about is how much you’ve changed your eating/drinking habits since you started. That will be the root of most of your weight loss.
Actually, it was ten days in. I did a week zero “test run,” too. Believe me, I’ve done a ton of research about this before I started.
My eating habits aren’t going to change terribly. I’ve always been a pretty healthy eater. I am finding myself not going for seconds and making SURE to eat breakfast every day, since before I would just skip it. I’m pretty sure the day of defeated attitude was a day that I missed breakfast, since I was fine after eating lunch.
I did manage to switch successfully from coffee to tea, and thus cut my caffeine intake by about half (black coffee to plain tea, so no net loss of calories, and I’m not a soda drinker).
If you can manage it, try doing five meals instead of three, breakfast being the largest at about 1.5-2x the size of the rest.
Basically, you start out each day in an energy deficit, so the giant breakfast helps kick start your metabolism out of storage mode and into burn mode, eating smaller meals more frequently helps maintain burn mode.
I started doing this, and once you figure out the calories in your foods it’s not too hard to do. It’s not always convenient on a daily basis, but the more you do it, the better.
I set up a Flickr stream. So far, it’s just a before/now pic, but seems like a pretty big change already.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41372993@N04/3812835037/in/photostream/