I don’t have any clue as to how many fantasy RPG PCs I’ve played over the 30+ years I’ve been gaming. It’s a lot. Easily over a hundred. And they’ve been all over the spectrum in most ways I can think of from naughty to nice, wizards to warriors, stealthy to spectacular. There has been a big variety that has stretched my creativity in all sorts of ways, except when it comes to fitness. There I seem to be pretty unimaginative and that’s kind of hilarious.
When I’m playing a character who is out there having adventures, delving dungeons, and slaying all manner of bad guys, I more or less think of them as being in fantastic physical shape. And I mean on a certain level it makes a lot of sense. If you spend 50% of your day walking, 25% climbing out of ten foot deep pits, and the remaining 25% swinging a greatsword, you’ve probably got a vanishingly small percentage of body fat and rock-hard abs. Even my wizard type characters aren’t pudgy and out of shape, owing that they mostly hoof it everywhere (until they learn Teleport anyway) and carry everything they own on their back. Spellbooks aren’t weightless you know!
I have had, to the best of my recollection, one (1) PC who was fat and that’s because I rolled it as a disadvantage in Powers & Perils in approximately 1989. It was so notable a feature that the character was named “Chubbs” (I was a little less mature back then). I don’t recall Chubbs ever getting played a whole lot. But then again we rolled up lots of characters who got played little or none back then.
This is a bit of a generalization, but I’d venture to say most D&D characters are pretty fit. It makes sense if you think about it: You have complete freedom over this aspect of your character. Even if the rest of your stats are rolled randomly, you get to choose how you look. Paging through most of the art for fantasy games, you don’t see too many couch potato looking folks in the lineup. If being physically fit is as easy as writing the words, “Six foot two and 185 pounds of rippling muscle” into an “Appearance” blank on your character sheet, hey, why not?
It is, alas, not so easy outside the land of Greyhawk. Here most of us have doctors telling us that we could stand to lose a few pounds and cut down on the salt in our diet. I’m not going to sugar-coat this (says the diabetic): Gamers especially have a reputation for not being in top physical condition. The term “fatbeard” is there because it is frequently earned.
I’m not saying fat people are bad people. Far from it. But we know, especially as we get older, carrying extra pounds and being in poor physical shape leads to a host of other physical problems. Getting some exercise and acting a bit more like our player characters in that regard is a way to prove that Wis is not your dump stat.
I coach people a lot about fitness and I struggle not to feel like a hypocrite. My weight isn’t horrible (I weighed 187 a week ago and I’m six feet tall) but my exercise regimen is often sporadic. I’ve been sick a LOT this winter and that hasn’t helped either. I’m doing my best to get back to regular exercise, which, for me, is mostly running on my treadmill.
This is my chosen form of exercise not because I love running on my treadmill, but because it is the least objectionable form of exercise I’ve been able to find. It allows me to get rid of a lot of the variables, any one of which might push me from “willing to exercise” to “screw that, I’ll play a computer game and eat a bag of chips.” My treadmill is sitting five feet away from where I type this so there is no driving to the gym. And it’s never too hot or too cold or too rainy or too anything in my office such that I can’t get on there and run. Plus, it’s facing my computer screen, which means that I can listen to music or even watch a movie while I’m running if I want. I’ve completely set myself up to succeed. And yet sometimes I STILL don’t!
I’ve built other structures into my life over the last year to help me succeed when it comes to fitness. One of them was joining Fitocracy, which is a really cool website that appeals to the gamer in me. You get experience points for doing workouts, which in turn allows you to level up. You can earn achievements for doing different kinds of workouts. There are even quests you can complete by doing certain combinations of workouts. The Paperboy (where you bike a certain distance and then run as fast as you can for a half mile to simulate being chased by a dog) and Evolve (where you swim, do pullups, and run a mile in a single workout) encourage you to diversify your workouts. I know it sounds silly but those sorts of things motivate me and I generally feel better about them than the achievements I earn playing computer games.
In addition, I’ve started a group on Fitocracy (Scott Moore Coaching) so that some of my friends and I can keep track of each other’s progress, offer encouragement, and have friendly competitions with each other. This too has helped in terms of accountability and encouragement. Both of those are huge motivators in the coaching I do, so why not employ them for my own fitness goals too?
Another thing I’ve noticed for both myself and the clients I’ve worked with on fitness is: how you keep score is pretty important. Lots of folks want to lose weight and that’s a good thing. But tracking pounds lost is invariably a game of diminishing returns. The closer you get to your ideal weight, the smaller the numbers are going to be if you are strictly going by pounds lost. Instead, I encourage people to track the how often and how long they work out or the amount of reps they do or weight they lift. Those numbers will increase and are, to me, more fun to track.
I’d like to encourage any of you who are out there hoping to get into better shape to join our group (it’s mostly gamers in there anyway). If you are just starting out, you’ll fit right in with those of us who struggle to get our butts moving. And if you’ve been successfully working out for years now, join us and pay it forward. We could all use the help!
How do you find the motivation to get in or stay in shape? Have you found ways to make exercise fun? Or do you just put your head down and power through no matter what?
When I’m playing a character who is out there having adventures, delving dungeons, and slaying all manner of bad guys, I more or less think of them as being in fantastic physical shape. And I mean on a certain level it makes a lot of sense. If you spend 50% of your day walking, 25% climbing out of ten foot deep pits, and the remaining 25% swinging a greatsword, you’ve probably got a vanishingly small percentage of body fat and rock-hard abs. Even my wizard type characters aren’t pudgy and out of shape, owing that they mostly hoof it everywhere (until they learn Teleport anyway) and carry everything they own on their back. Spellbooks aren’t weightless you know!
I have had, to the best of my recollection, one (1) PC who was fat and that’s because I rolled it as a disadvantage in Powers & Perils in approximately 1989. It was so notable a feature that the character was named “Chubbs” (I was a little less mature back then). I don’t recall Chubbs ever getting played a whole lot. But then again we rolled up lots of characters who got played little or none back then.
This is a bit of a generalization, but I’d venture to say most D&D characters are pretty fit. It makes sense if you think about it: You have complete freedom over this aspect of your character. Even if the rest of your stats are rolled randomly, you get to choose how you look. Paging through most of the art for fantasy games, you don’t see too many couch potato looking folks in the lineup. If being physically fit is as easy as writing the words, “Six foot two and 185 pounds of rippling muscle” into an “Appearance” blank on your character sheet, hey, why not?
It is, alas, not so easy outside the land of Greyhawk. Here most of us have doctors telling us that we could stand to lose a few pounds and cut down on the salt in our diet. I’m not going to sugar-coat this (says the diabetic): Gamers especially have a reputation for not being in top physical condition. The term “fatbeard” is there because it is frequently earned.
I’m not saying fat people are bad people. Far from it. But we know, especially as we get older, carrying extra pounds and being in poor physical shape leads to a host of other physical problems. Getting some exercise and acting a bit more like our player characters in that regard is a way to prove that Wis is not your dump stat.
I coach people a lot about fitness and I struggle not to feel like a hypocrite. My weight isn’t horrible (I weighed 187 a week ago and I’m six feet tall) but my exercise regimen is often sporadic. I’ve been sick a LOT this winter and that hasn’t helped either. I’m doing my best to get back to regular exercise, which, for me, is mostly running on my treadmill.
This is my chosen form of exercise not because I love running on my treadmill, but because it is the least objectionable form of exercise I’ve been able to find. It allows me to get rid of a lot of the variables, any one of which might push me from “willing to exercise” to “screw that, I’ll play a computer game and eat a bag of chips.” My treadmill is sitting five feet away from where I type this so there is no driving to the gym. And it’s never too hot or too cold or too rainy or too anything in my office such that I can’t get on there and run. Plus, it’s facing my computer screen, which means that I can listen to music or even watch a movie while I’m running if I want. I’ve completely set myself up to succeed. And yet sometimes I STILL don’t!
I’ve built other structures into my life over the last year to help me succeed when it comes to fitness. One of them was joining Fitocracy, which is a really cool website that appeals to the gamer in me. You get experience points for doing workouts, which in turn allows you to level up. You can earn achievements for doing different kinds of workouts. There are even quests you can complete by doing certain combinations of workouts. The Paperboy (where you bike a certain distance and then run as fast as you can for a half mile to simulate being chased by a dog) and Evolve (where you swim, do pullups, and run a mile in a single workout) encourage you to diversify your workouts. I know it sounds silly but those sorts of things motivate me and I generally feel better about them than the achievements I earn playing computer games.
In addition, I’ve started a group on Fitocracy (Scott Moore Coaching) so that some of my friends and I can keep track of each other’s progress, offer encouragement, and have friendly competitions with each other. This too has helped in terms of accountability and encouragement. Both of those are huge motivators in the coaching I do, so why not employ them for my own fitness goals too?
Another thing I’ve noticed for both myself and the clients I’ve worked with on fitness is: how you keep score is pretty important. Lots of folks want to lose weight and that’s a good thing. But tracking pounds lost is invariably a game of diminishing returns. The closer you get to your ideal weight, the smaller the numbers are going to be if you are strictly going by pounds lost. Instead, I encourage people to track the how often and how long they work out or the amount of reps they do or weight they lift. Those numbers will increase and are, to me, more fun to track.
I’d like to encourage any of you who are out there hoping to get into better shape to join our group (it’s mostly gamers in there anyway). If you are just starting out, you’ll fit right in with those of us who struggle to get our butts moving. And if you’ve been successfully working out for years now, join us and pay it forward. We could all use the help!
How do you find the motivation to get in or stay in shape? Have you found ways to make exercise fun? Or do you just put your head down and power through no matter what?
