A Gamer's guide to Weight Loss

If you've been living in a cave somewhere, perhaps you haven't heard the news that exercise is good for you.

Ideally, a person should be performing cardio exercise 3-4 times a week, and the actual recommendations on length of workouts vary. Strength training is also good, and should be performed x times a week (where x is the number of times whoever you believe to be an authority has said you must strength train).

That being said, I get a little cardio workout from walking (I make it a point to walk around campus when I can and not just take the van everywhere) and strength training for me consists of carrying heavy objects and moving stuff. My job is not totally sedentary, which is good. My lifestyle does not accommodate exercise for exercise's sake, and this is bad.

So, given all this information, how is it possible that I can consistently lose weight and keep weight off? I am now around 185 pounds, and that's around 5 pounds off ideal for my height. I have being as heavy as ~215 pounds, and for years I could not get below 200.

Here's the principles under which even a geeky gamer can learn to manage their waistline. Mind you, I am still of the opinion that the exercise components cited above would be better than my course. Certainly my wife is in much better shape than me, and she follows only principle number one. The difference: serious exercise.

With the one caveat about exercise in mind, here you go:

1) Drink a LOT of water - It makes you feel good, full, and it have 0 calories. You should drink at least 64 oz. a day (force it down if you have to) assuming a non-arid environment. If you drink that much water, you'll find that your stomach space for food and especially the high-calorie, nothing -good-about-them, soft drinks will diminish.

2) Take care of your mind - See a therapist (yes, you really need it). Occasionally read non-gamer literature. Monitor your emotions. The happier in general you are, the easier it will be to make lifestyle changes.

3) Front-load your daily calories - Eat a big breakfast if you can. Breakfast food gets used as fuel throughout the day. If you can't eat a BIG breakfast, at least eat something in the morning. You'll be less hungry and thus eat less later (when your body doesn't have the time to break down the food into lovely ATP molecules).

4) Eat calories proportional to your activity level - Common sense folks: if you sit around rolling dice or playing HALO all day, you probably shouldn't eat the 2,000 calorie diet a moderately active person does. That is, you shouldn't if you want to lose some weight. Feel free to pork out if you want to.

5) Avoid unnatural foods - Cheesy Poofs sound great, but your body doesn't recognize them as food. All those processed junk food snacks are just calories your body isn't ready to use.

Choose food that resembles what healthy people eat. If you like sweets, choose things like cookies (which at least may have been baked),and fruit (a better choice). Salty snacks should consist of more nutritious foods like almonds rather than super-greasy potato chips.

For gamer friendly group foods, consider skipping burgers and fries. Pizza is a so-so option; Chinese can be good or bad depending on what you order.

A little pre-game preparation could go a long way. What about making a yummy, actually healthy meal for yourself and your D&D troupe ahead of time?

6) Consider phasing meat out - Yes, the wandering vegetarian you knew was lurking around the bend rears its head and hits you with a natural 20 of logic (If you don't understand the reference, there is hope for you).

Prepare to make your Will save versus good advice...

Eating lots of meat is a great way to blimp out. It's also bad for you, the environment, etc.

Am I a vegetarian? Three days a week, yes. This is not a major sacrifice (I pick the day that are easy for me to skip meat). If you skipped meat even two days a week (and didn't substitute lots of fried food and cheese for that bacon) I am sure this would make losing weight much easier.

Well, that's about it. Here's to a slimmer you at the next convention.