Experience Point: Become a Fit-Beard

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?

 

[Umbran]

Consider my eyes rolled.

You might want to hold that thought just a moment...

Because, for all your supposed shock, and for your suggestions that I need to go elsewhere to learn more, you show a striking lack of comprehension of what I wrote.

To wit - I am not disagreeing with you.

You are busy talking about what is good for the body. I am talking about what you can do to your body with specific, focused forms of exercise. These are in no way at odds, sir. All I am saying is that you can become highly trained and "fit" in one area, if you focus on one kind of training. A whole slew of Olympic athletes kind of prove my point - you don't see the weightlifters also competing in the marathons. They are specialized.

Do you disagree with that point - that, for example, it is possible to turn yourself into a remarkable weightlifter, who isn't much of a runner? No?

Then don't roll your eyes at me. It's rude.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I was always pretty fit. Until recently I had a number of physical fitness hobbies that kept me feeling good. But I did get sick two years ago and had to stop. So I went from 1-3 hours of exercise on a good day to 0. To adapt I cut down what I ate and didn't gain any weight. In fact I lost weight and muscle. So in the last couple weeks I have slowly and carefully tried to exercise again. My goal now isn't hours, if I can get twenty to thirty minutes of light exercise I think that is all I really need. Most of what I did before was martial arts and boxing, with some weight training and daily runs. Now I just do light shadow boxing, stretches and light weights.

 

[Dausuul]

I always struggled with motivating myself to go to the gym. Finally I said "Screw this, I'm going to do something fun," and I quit the gym and found a local ballroom dance studio. I've wanted to learn tango ever since watching "True Lies" in college, and the studio I picked has a deal where you get to participate in all the group lessons for free as long as you're taking a certain number of one-on-one lessons.

Now I exercise for an hour and a half every weeknight, and two and a half on Fridays... not that I think of it as exercise. I'm always learning new things, it engages both my mind and my body, I get to show off my fancy dance moves at performances*, and dancing beats heck out of moving iron up and down or running endlessly to nowhere. My endurance has improved substantially without me even thinking about it.

That said, I'll be the first to admit it's not really high-intensity exercise, and it's not an effective way to lose weight unless you're going to become a professional dancer and do it eight, ten, twelve hours a day. In my experience, weight loss is much more about controlling what you eat than it is about exercising.

*Don't worry, you don't have to do performances if you don't want to.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I do think the key is to find an activity you enjoy. Exercise should be something you look forward to.

 

[BASHMAN]

I begun this quest to get fit myself relatively recently. I can talk about the techniques I used at some other point, but now I want to chime in about motive.

A key component of my success (I have lost over 60 lbs) vis-a-vis incentive was my wife pledging to game with me every time I lost 5lbs; and that she'd game once every two weeks once I got below a certain weight (which I am now below). I have tried to lose weight before; when there was money, etc. on the line; but that was never much of an incentive. Suddenly, though, my wife who was not a gamer, was telling me she would game with us; and all I had to do was lose 5 lbs. So I gave it a go; and I went like never before. I started off simply: stopped having seconds at meals, stopped eating by 9pm everyday, and began taking short walks every day. Within a couple weeks, I had done it, and my wife was making her character for our game.

Once she was in game, talking in her oh-so-corny Scottish accent (we had just seen Brave, and her character is named Merida) I was hooked. That got me to step up my diet and exercise goals (gradually; that is the key to gradually increase them) to ensure that she would be back in two-three weeks. It's been seven months, and she hasn't missed a gaming session.

Now, at first, for me; the big motivation was getting my wife to play RPGs with us, because it was something in my life that I loved, and she was a person who I loved, and I wanted to have them both at once. But as I kept going, and as I began seeing improvements in myself (and I don't mean body shape; I mean feeling better about my ability move without wheezing, etc) I began doing this for me.

If you've got 9 minutes, there's a little RPG-esque video I'd like to share with you (but perhaps you've seen it):

[video=youtube;nUvngte0d3E]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUvngte0d3E[/video]

Now look at the end. The whole time, the heroes were on their journey seeking "The Reward" but in the end, the Reward was how they felt when they looked at themselves in the mirror; how strong and experienced they had become, the journey itself was the reward. And that's how it gets to be with fitness. At some point, this changes from doing this for someone or something, into doing it for yourself.

Now for you, a good motive might not be a partner coming to game with you. For my wife, that wasn't something she needed. For her, each "milestone" she hit, she got an "unlockable" which has included various things, like Mani-Pedi to new cieling fans for the house, etc. But for her; who only really began this for moral support (she was not nearly as overweight as I was, and she didn't want those things as badly as I wanted her to come to RPG night) she has begun wanting to keep doing this, just for herself. Just this morning, after we left the gym, she said "I feel AMAZING right now". It eventually changes from "what I want" to "how I feel" and that's the point where you get committed to it.

Now, someone may need to make alterations. For instance, if you don't have a significant other you badly want to come to game, maybe you have a friend or relative who you'd like to make the same committment (and would be willing to). Maybe the GM in your gaming group might make a deal with you, where everytime you unlock a milestone the entire group gets a new magic item. That ought to put a lot of people in your corner.

Also, I've had support and help from people outside of gaming, I got a lot of support from people on facebook, etc. when I share my running or other fitness activities.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Amusing side-effect of my nightly dog-drag: we live in a suburb that has a surprising amount of wildlife- one of our neighbors had a problem with beavers in the nearby wetland building up a lodge and starting to flood his backyard- and so we see all kinds of things around.

Well, the bunnies come out at night.

I tend to walk the dogs at night. Late.

So, more than once, we've seen our share of bunnies...including a couple of evenings where there were a multitude spread out all over the lawns on the side of the street we were on. As we advanced, our trio (each of us wearing a 6-bulb LED light) was spotted, and they would hop ahead to the next lawn to avoid us. But they remained on our intended path. Well, the net effect was that, as we continued on our walk, the crowd of bunnies hopping ahead of us grew in numbers with each house we passed.

If someone had been watching, we would have looked like we were herding bunnies.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I think it's important to find an approach that fits with how you want to live your life. There are a lot of effective ways to lose weight and become fit, but that doesn't mean they're all good for you.

The one that really worked for me was Body for Life. I like to run, I like to lift, I like eating small frequent meals rather than few large ones, and I was able to do all that. Not to mention that the program gives you one day off from the diet per week, which was really important to my following it for the long term.

I'm 6'2" and I dropped from 230 to 200 in about 12 weeks. I wasn't in bad shape before doing it; I've always been into running/hiking/skating/swimming and I was very serious about weight lifting at the time, but I hit the 30 year old metabolism slowdown and suddenly started gaining weight and thought I'd better do something about it.

 

[exile]

This is a topic that's near and dear to my heart. First, a little about myself. I am 37 years old. I have been a fantasy geek for as long as I can remember. I started gaming with the D&D red box when I was 8 years old. I still game on an almost weekly basis. When I was young, I played outside a lot. As I got older, I studied Tae Kwon Do and played some tennis in high school. By no means, was I ever considered an "athlete," but I wasn't in bad shape either. During college, I started getting pudgy. Then, during my junior year, I decided to do something about it. I signed up for a 'training for the mini-marathon' class, and I fell in love with running. I ran regularly for the rest of college and the first couple of years of medical school. I also biked and swam pretty regularly, even lifted some weights. Unfortunately, toward the middle of medical school, I decided that I wanted to be a general surgeon, and that I needed to work harder at school to get a general surgery residency. My working out fell to nothing... and stayed there for the rest of medical school, five years of residency, and the first 4+ years of private practice.

As I was preparing for my oral board exam, I noticed that my weight had ballooned from 155# to 230#. I decided that I had to do something about it (and that being in better physical shape might make me sharper for said exam). At present, I play a lot of Pathfinder, specifically Pathfinder Society, so I asked myself this-- what would I have to be able to do to be a member of a real-world Pathfinder Society? The first step, I decided, was that I would have to be in better shape.

February 2012, I started running again. At first, I couldn't do much more than two miles at a time, and that was slow (For the record, I'm still pretty slow). To motivate myself, I would pretend that I was being chased by a troll, specifically the one on the front cover of the Pathfinder Bestiary. When I passed the aforementioned exam, I felt like my life was finally my own again. I signed up for a Warrior Dash. Shortly after that, a friend from college talked me into signing up for Tough Mudder. I did both races and loved them. Along the way, I started adding calisthenics to my runs-- pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups.

I've lost from 230# down to about 210#. I'd like to lose a lot more (but I have a love affair with food). I don't have to flee imaginary trolls anymore, but I have signed up for many more races. I did a plain old 5k last December. I ran another 5k obstacle course yesterday. My longest run since getting back into this has been 18-20 miles. I'm able to do a long run about every three-four weeks. Unfortunately, my work just doesn't allow me to do it as frequently as I did during college and the early years of medical school (i.e. every other week).

As an aside, I've also decided that a real-world Pathfinder would need more than a fitness baseline. Along those lines, I'm forcing myself to read at least one book every month; I'm learning to shoot and hunt, acquiring guns, even took a concealed carry class. Next on my agenda-- read even more and work on some specific fitness issues (climbing and swimming).

Now, I'm off to check out fitocracy.

 

[zegerman]

I wouldn't mind some advice on managing the insatiable hunger that follows the early phases of my "I'm really going to get fit this time and stay that way" workouts. In the first 2-3 weeks, when I'm most in need of seeing results, my appetite pretty much explodes and even focusing on vegetables and high fiber foods to try and get a sense of "fullness" I usually offset my gains and too often it derails the whole project.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I wouldn't mind some advice on managing the insatiable hunger that follows the early phases of my "I'm really going to get fit this time and stay that way" workouts. In the first 2-3 weeks, when I'm most in need of seeing results, my appetite pretty much explodes and even focusing on vegetables and high fiber foods to try and get a sense of "fullness" I usually offset my gains and too often it derails the whole project.

it is pretty normal to get way more hungry. I used to just drink a low calorie shake or juice right after a work out to curb it. Preparing healthy food for after a work out is also a good idea. I used to make a shake with an orange, egg, and light milk that filled me up for hours (though I would be careful with the egg bit). Basically though it takes discipline to keep from eating everything in sight.