Weight Loss

[TranceMonster]

So i'm curious to see how other people go about losing weight, building muscle etc who also play games a lot like myself so thought i'd make a thread.

Background on myself, been playing WoW since early vanilla put on a bit of weight during high school so was just a bit overweight and decided to lose weight about 2 months ago so far i've lost over 10 kilos and have still been able to game a lot while doing so my question to you is:

How much weight have you lost?
How long did it take you?
How often do you play video games and still get these results?
Do you have any special tips or tricks that you do when you work out to lose weight fast or build muscle faster?

[Ave07]

Think this should be in the fitness section.

Ill share my story: Weighed 250 last years so I started slowly working on a exercise routine.

Morning protein bar and a bottle of water then go out for a jog.
Come home drink Gatorade and a bowl of fruits.
Go to the gym (only 3 days a week) to lift weights.
Come home eat a bowl of chicken or tuna salad (no dressing or croutons) and do w/e I need to through the day.
Eat dinner (string beans and boiled eggs) then go to sleep 3 hours later.

I lost 20 lbs so far so went from 250 to 230 goal is 170 by the end of this year.
Started in December so almost 4 months?
I play for like 2-3 hours a day I guess, don't play as much as I used to.
STAY CONSISTENT! If you miss a few days or weeks you pretty have to start all over! Also its hard work but the end result is totally worth it!

gl on your journey to be fit!

[mvaliz]

My weight has fluctuated greatly. But I have managed to loose 130lbs.

The deal is to ignore the Gym Rats and learn that INTENSE EXERSIZE WORKOUTS ARE NOT MANDATORY. In fact, it can hinder you depending on your weight. You'll get VERY frustrated VERY quickly.

The key to all large-weight obese people I've known who have shed it is to first simply start by changing your eating habbits. No, I don't mean become a vegetarian - simply start by using mathematics. Calorie couting and watching your carb intake. The human body naturally burns 2000 calories, give or take, by just being alive and functioning. Keep your caloric intake at around 1,700-1,900 and you will start to see some slow changes.

Exersize wise - depends on your energy level and active lifestyle. If you're stupidly fat and live a mostly sessile life - just start by going for walks. even a 15-30 minute walk every day would do you WONDERS!!!

When I lost 130lbs - I did NO major exersizes aside from walking. When I got down to a nice weight, I had more energy - and thus NATURALLY felt like I was able to do more, so I took up raquetball and jogging. The point here is to START SLOWLY... do what you can instead of doing "what you should". If you get a small stream of successes, you'll build self-esteem and more energy - and THAT is when you can start radicalizing your diet choices and exercise regime.

Remember, you're not a 300lb man... you're a 150lb man carrying 150lbs of weight. You try running a mile while carrying another you on your back! :P But, the plus side means even SMALL activities like walking will burn more energy than most people - as you're a 150lb man carrying 150lbs of weight. :P

If people tell you "You'll loose muscle instead of fat if you don't exercise"- Ignore them as they're lying to you, or are simply ignorant of the truth. The truth is "You'll only loose muscle instead of fat if you have well-developed muscles when you start the diet". My muscles were toned to allow me to lift groceries and walk up stairs... so I experienced absolutely NO MUSCLE MASS LOSS whatsoever durring my 130lb loss. If you were a pro-weightlifter and stopped exercising and stopped eating, THEN it would start eating away at your muscles first... but only because you're NOT using them to their top end that they're used to - lifting weights - but they WOULD stop eating away at your muscles when it got to the point where you were still walking and lifting groceries and doing your daily tasks. :P

Oh, and ignore anybody who tells you to eat Protien bars, shakes, or any of that god-aweful unnatural processed garbage. it's just that... pure garbage. Eat real foods. Apples, meat... learn to cook at home (BIG tip for dieting!)

[TranceMonster]

Didn't know there was a sports & fitness section but atleast it was already moved here

I also know there's other weight loss threads in this section but trying to focus more on people who game atleast 6-8+ hours a day but if you still game feel free to share!

Anyways, I currently weight 250 pounds and have lost 23 pounds in the last 2 months, my mum is a personal trainer and my dad has been working out for a while now with her they're both very supportive of me and I actually enjoy working out now.

Few things i've heard which i've been trying is that using your own body weight is better than using any machines or lifting actual weights like doing squats, crunches, push ups etc.

I'm unemployed and have been for a while but I game for 10+ hours a day or watch shows because I have nothing else to do so i'm also going to start walking every day around my neighbourhood which is extremely hilly.

I've been on a calorie counter since I started that my mum put me onto MyFitness Pal now I also heard that eating more actually helps you lose weight for example I have 1700 calories a day I am allowed to eat based on my height, weight and age so i'm not going to starve myself to try lose weight I want to reach that 1700 or get close to it which is what i'm currently doing and I was actually shocked when I was first doing this calorie counter thing because trying to reach that 1700 while eating healthy foods is actually quite hard.

[Voidism]

I've lost 132 pounds with Low Carb High Fat (LCHF). Nothing else at all.
Agreed mvallas... those bars and products are just screwing your wallet.

[Deleted]

When I started training I was at 96 kg which is about 212 of your pounds. I started training as a selectable class at school. My main training now and then was weight lifting with cardio and hiit ( interval training ) as more of a secondary thing. I went slowly from training at school twice a week to training 5.5 ( it's an avarage, I don't have a half training every week) times a week in the gym and cardio two times over the course of about 4 years. I'm now at 86 kg or 190 pounds, the weight difference itself isn't that big in numbers but I'm not at around 9% body fat so the fat I've lost is probably much greater.
During my training I was a semi-hardcore raider and played pretty much, I was in the world 39 guild in icc and I continued raiding till MOP came out, and at some point I was raiding 5 times per week and going to the gym 5 times per week while also attending to University.

As stated earlier, I would recommend small steps. Going for walks or light jogs and if you plan on building muscles don't lift for more than a hour in the start and focus on the big muscles groups like chest, back and legs before you go and try to be manly with the biceps curl. When you do changes, do it small and slow so in case you have a fall back from a change you made, it's still pretty healthy.

And to the guys who sayis protein is bad or unnatural. The two protein powders I have is whey and casein, whey is made from the by-product of cheese and casein is processed cottage cheese basically. So saying they are unnatural is like saying that cheese or pasta is unnatural, as long as you buy the right stuff. They are also really effective but since probably 95% of all people get enough proteins through their diet I would not recommend them to beginners.

[Deleted]

You don't need to drop everything and work out all day every day. I generally do 30-60min a day, six times a week. Leaves plenty of time for other stuff, such as games and other hobbies. While I've only lost 12lb since January, I've built quite a lot of muscle as I make sure to combine weight training with cardio (so as a result my weight loss seems slow). I'm not taking any supplements apart from fish oil and multivitamin, I'm leaving everything else be for now.

Diet wise I stick to roughly 1500 calories a day, some days I only consume a bit over 1200 if I haven't worked out much. I try my best to stay away from processed foods as they are usually quite high in sodium, but I do allow myself the occasional takeaway dinner. Losing weight is a lifestyle change. As long as your overall diet and lifestyle is healthy, one cheat meal here and there won't ruin your progress.

[Deleted]

Lost about 30 pounds. I was 15 stone at my heaviest. Now around 13 and I look great.

I used Michi's Ladder for my 'diet' although I wouldn't call it a diet. I was just eating decent food. I did around 3 hours of HIIT a week. 6 x 30 minutes usually.

Worked wonders for me.

[Dtloweca]

Lost 40 lbs only took about 3 months. I play video games about 1-3 hours 3-6 days a week. Eat clean, keep weight heavy, maintain good form, reps from 6-10.

[ebah]

So i'm curious to see how other people go about losing weight, building muscle etc who also play games a lot like myself so thought i'd make a thread.

Background on myself, been playing WoW since early vanilla put on a bit of weight during high school so was just a bit overweight and decided to lose weight about 2 months ago so far i've lost over 10 kilos and have still been able to game a lot while doing so my question to you is:

How much weight have you lost?
Gained 168lbs -> 178lbs in 4 ½ months, but its muscle! All i have done i've just trained at gym 2-3 times a week, havent really done any cardio.

How often do you play video games and still get these results?
Well i sit around computer aswell at job, so that combined like 10h+ easily everyday.

Do you have any special tips or tricks that you do when you work out to lose weight fast or build muscle faster?
Try to eat all kinds of "good" foods that you like and avoid soda, chips, candy etc..

[Souichirou]

This is my journey started 7 years ago at around 270lb and 30% body fat and currently 195lb and 11% body fat it was a long and hard process, I start my days off with an hour cardio in the morning fasted to burn glycogen store so my body has ONLY fat to rely on for energy then yoga to get a good stretch and recover before hitting weights, and after that it normally ends up around 10-11 am which I have breakfast of 4 egg omelet or scrambled eggs + bowl of oatmeal piece of fruit along with a multivitamin, omega 3 oil.

My workout routine is mainly a 3 day split with set muscle groups and a rest day at the end of the cycle. eg. Back, biceps on day 1, Chest, triceps, shoulders on day 2, legs and core on day 3 (NEVER SKIP LEG DAY!) with light cardio around 5-15 mins after each workout.

As for my gaming I used to raid at a high lvl since vanilla till end of wrath 4 days a week for 4-5 hours before taking a year break, I still play wow and raid with old guildies and watching anime daily. xP

Tips and tricks ? YES ! Its consistency with workouts NEVER skip days even rest days are cardio days the ONLY time you should ever need to skip is your injured and need to rest, a GOOD clean diet with complex carbs over simple carbs, NEVER snack it might not seem like much but a cookie here and there adds alot of extra calories, drink LOTS of water ! water keeps you hydrated. Lift heavy within a 8-12 rep range and 3-4 sets per exercise will yield positive results in preserving and building a little muscle and burning fat at your stage.

Anyways, I currently weight 250 pounds and have lost 23 pounds in the last 2 months, my mum is a personal trainer and my dad has been working out for a while now with her they're both very supportive of me and I actually enjoy working out now.

Few things i've heard which i've been trying is that using your own body weight is better than using any machines or lifting actual weights like doing squats, crunches, push ups etc.

I've been on a calorie counter since I started that my mum put me onto MyFitness Pal now I also heard that eating more actually helps you lose weight for example I have 1700 calories a day I am allowed to eat based on my height, weight and age so i'm not going to starve myself to try lose weight I want to reach that 1700 or get close to it which is what i'm currently doing and I was actually shocked when I was first doing this calorie counter thing because trying to reach that 1700 while eating healthy foods is actually quite hard.

First nothing beats weights in terms of building muscle your body weight will only do so much before you hit a plateau, having a food journal is good to keep track of what you eat and totals but 1700 calories is cutting an entire meal. WAY to low especially for your current body weight, when I was around your weight my maintenance calories require was 2800 to not lose or gain and at 2300 calories per day I was losing around 1-1.5 pounds of fat per week.

I'm not going to say your mother's advice is wrong, but even my personal trainer at the time told me if I wanted the ideal diet to achieve my goals talk to a dietitian as they studied and for such a field they would be vastly more knowledgeable in the health and strains which a bad diet can cause.

[Ethes]

Personally I just quit drinking soda and eating cookies and candy. Although I miss them sometimes during intense long gaming sessions, it's not something I can't do without. Moreover, I try to play a bit of Tennis atleast once or twice a week, take the bike to university and walk about 40 minutes on the days I have to work.

Seems to be working pretty well for me..

[Deleted]

Personally I just quit drinking soda and eating cookies and candy. Although I miss them sometimes during intense long gaming sessions, it's not something I can't do without. Moreover, I try to play a bit of Tennis atleast once or twice a week, take the bike to university and walk about 40 minutes on the days I have to work.

Seems to be working pretty well for me..

I think this is an obvious advice to anyone who is trying to lose weight.

I also like your signature a lot (and your avatar) they seem very fitting given the thread

[Asphyxiate9]

Don't eat after dinner! Unless you plan on doing some exercise you won't really be burning it off.

Try a glass of water instead, for me 9 times out of 10 it will actually stop my hunger. In the case where you are still quite hungry I recommend fruit or another healthy substitute.

Cut out drinks containing sugar. This was really hard for me, in fact I'm fairly sure I was addicted because every time I had some after I stopped which was rare, I felt really relaxed. You can treat yourself to a can or small bottle once a week but I recommend cutting it out completely.

Those are just a few tips, but the lack of eating after dinner is really important.

[TranceMonster]

First nothing beats weights in terms of building muscle your body weight will only do so much before you hit a plateau, having a food journal is good to keep track of what you eat and totals but 1700 calories is cutting an entire meal. WAY to low especially for your current body weight, when I was around your weight my maintenance calories require was 2800 to not lose or gain and at 2300 calories per day I was losing around 1-1.5 pounds of fat per week.

I'm not going to say your mother's advice is wrong, but even my personal trainer at the time told me if I wanted the ideal diet to achieve my goals talk to a dietitian as they studied and for such a field they would be vastly more knowledgeable in the health and strains which a bad diet can cause.

2800 instead of 1700 sounds a bit much, I usually have just a bowl of cereal for breakfast, big salad for lunch and whatever my parents cook for dinner which is always healthy, I find it hard to reach 1700 but trying to reach 2800 seems like i'd have to stuff my face a lot lol. Maybe i'm suppose to eat more for breakfast or something but I snack on ricecakes or fruit every few hours between breakfast lunch or dinner.

[NightZero88]

So i'm curious to see how other people go about losing weight, building muscle etc who also play games a lot like myself so thought i'd make a thread.

Background on myself, been playing WoW since early vanilla put on a bit of weight during high school so was just a bit overweight and decided to lose weight about 2 months ago so far i've lost over 10 kilos and have still been able to game a lot while doing so my question to you is:

How much weight have you lost?
How long did it take you?
How often do you play video games and still get these results?
Do you have any special tips or tricks that you do when you work out to lose weight fast or build muscle faster?

I notice in a later post you are talking about gaming for 6-8 hours a day. Do you not have a job or school to be able to do this? I mean, I'll give you my story but we really need more information from you. If you work a 8-5 job then game for 6-8 hours then sleep you won't have any time to do exercise. So what are you looking for? Or are you just curious? If just curious here's my story below.

I weighed about 180 lbs for years but my weight was starting to go up. At the same time I joined a new company where we got cheaper insurance if you made 1200 points a month. 1 minute of exercise equaled 1 point. And as I said if you listed it all you got about 15-20% off your insurance bill a month. So I decided I wanted to do this and it was a great way to keep myself honest and get in shape. So I went online and found a training routine (cost $40) and it was a 6 month routine broken up into 3 sections of 2 months each. I figured if nothing else it would keep me going to the gym because it was structured. You worked out 4 times a week so I did Mon/Tues, off Wed, Thurs/Fri, off Sat/Sun. I also made a free account on livestrong and kept track of my calories every day to make sure I didn't just snack constantly. I set livestrong to lose 1 pound a week so it cut my total calories by 400. It lets you record your exercise and subtracts those calories from how many you consume and gives you your total for the day. After 2 months I had dropped about 20 pounds. Now my main issue was I did this for 6 months (eating in a calorie deficit and working out) and it wasn't super healthy. I ended up getting dizzy spells because I wasn't eating enough. So I've corrected that problem, still work out 4 times a week with weights and running and eat healthy and it's been a year and a half since I started and I still weigh in the 160s at 5'10". I game a decent amount (about 3 hours+ a day depending) but still do my exercise and still hang out with friends, work and have a life.

So to answer your questions. I've lost 20 pounds. I did it in about 2 months give or take a few weeks. I play video games about 3-4 hours a day, back then it was probably more, I play a bit less now.

And my special tips or tricks are:
1. Find a routine that you enjoy it will keep you going to the gym.
2. Start eating healthy and record calories, it sucks but it will keep you honest (I only recorded for 2 months, then I knew my eating habits were the same every day so I stopped).
3. Give yourself 1 cheat day a week, I typically had a pizza on Saturday. If you don't you will get burned out on eating healthy all the time and fall back into your unhealthy eating.
4. If you're doing lifting and running, lift before running. The reason is lifting continues to burn calories after you stop while cardio does not, however, if you lift first then do cardio you will continue burning your cardio calories as well.
5. If you do running do HIIT (high intensity interval training) instead of a constant long run. HIIT means: Walk 60 seconds, run 30, walk 60, run 30, etc.
6. There is some debate on this but I think the reasoning is sound. Wait 3 hours after eating before going to the gym. This will make sure you have digested everything in your stomach so that you are burning fat instead of what you just ate. Secondly, wait an hour after you exercise before eating to maximize the calorie burn.
7. If you are trying to bulk up/gain muscle make sure you get enough protein, it is the building block of your muscles. You do not need crazy amounts, .65 grams per pound of weight is enough. Lots of people are saying stay away from protein bars/shakes but if you do not cook (like me) they work well. My morning protein shake which is high quality whey protein is 40g alone. That gets a good chunk of my necessary protein out of the way, it also keeps me full until lunch (4-5 hours later) and stops me from snacking on bad foods.

That's about all I've got, hope it helps.

[Deleted]

i lost about 10% of my bodyweight (around 8 kg) within the last 6 weeks due to changing my eating habbits and doing more sports. ways of weight loss that work for someone are always a personal decision. i found it very easy to reduce my carb intake to very low amounts. cereals in your case are very unhealthy if your cerals are not muesli and high carb even if they are muesli. if you can have eggs for breakfast and combine them with something healthy. eggs are really awesome. rich in proteins and keep you sated for very very long. although they are quite high in fat its most of all essential omega 3 fatty acids that are not turned into body fat but cell walls.
i usually have eggs for my diner together with low fat fish/meat (fillet of pork) and legumes (pease pudding).

but you should also do some sports. bad thing about sports is that you have to keep it up. get yourself music you truly enjoy so the cardio is not boring and combine with sports you can do with your friends. i love rocketball p.e. but whatever gets you moving will work
sports are pretty much like computer games if you enjoy the sport you do. when you start your body becomes addicted due to endorphin release and youll want to do more. i started with rocketball and as i have joined a gym to safe money i also started to actually use the gym and now i ended up enjoying it more than rocketball itself i increasaed my shedule from twice a week to 6 times in rather short time. its not even time consuming as it takes me 60 minutes a day and can be sheduled whenever you have some spare time.
have a look if you like it once or twice a week and hopefully youll want to do more.

Wait 3 hours after eating before going to the gym. This will make sure you have digested everything in your stomach so that you are burning fat instead of what you just ate. Secondly, wait an hour after you exercise before eating to maximize the calorie burn.

if you also want to build up (some) muscles ild recommend against that. you simply dont want to be hungry when you do sports because you simply do less intense training than you would if you were sated and also youll be extremely hungry when youre finished and stuff anything in your mouth afterwards. just do some situps or alike before going to bed and burn your fat when youre asleep.

[Nada Obama]

eat healthy, no pre made foods, eat from the source! if it can stay on a shelf or fringe for weeks, gunna be processed up the azz. Take breaks from gaming every hour and do push up and sit ups! get you blood flowing!!

[sharpnova]

Looks like a lot of people here have experienced a similar situation to mine. Though I don't think I read a single post that didn't contain at least one piece of misinformation.

I had a lot of theories and systems (all invented by me) as I lost my weight and by the end, most of them had been heavily modified or proven completely wrong.

I am 6'5" and started at 319.6 pounds. This weight gain occurred over a period of roughly 5 years. Up until then I had always been incredibly skinny and ate whatever I wanted. I've estimated that back in those days I would eat 5-10,000 calories a day. And my weight always seemed to stay right at about 174. I was really really skinny.

I was still growing though and I'm sure that was a significant factor. Once I hit my adult height, the BMR was obviously reduced and the eatstyle to which I'd become accustomed translated to massive weight gains which I didn't really care about until I saw some photos of myself and was shocked at how fat I'd become.

So I lost 100 pounds in seven months. I did this by suddenly cutting calories down to almost nothing (700 a day for the first couple months) Then upping it to around a 1000, then when I was shedding the last few dekapounds, I would up my daily calories by 100 per day each week that the weigh-in had me at a new dekapound milestone.

I didn't exercise at all.

I didn't follow any stupid diets. Just my own calorie logging and limiting. I didn't join any retarded clinics. Just me, my scale, and a spreadsheet.

I didn't lose any muscle.

There is nothing wrong with eating ridiculously low amounts of calories for as long as you want. Your body has plenty of fat to burn through and it will. People would tell me that I was eating an amount of food that would be dangerous for a small framed woman. Obviously they were wrong. I was as mentally alert as ever. (mentally alert for me is in the 5-6 s.d. range, so basically a level of intelligence and sharpness that no one on this website could even comprehend) I felt great physically. (i still feel great. more great now since I'm running like crazy (because i enjoy running. not for weight loss, though the calories burned do allow me to eat a little more) and lifting weights (not to lose weight or tone up like some f***** but simply because I like video games and getting stronger and bumping up the stats on what I can lift is fun for me. could care less how I look. I'm already good looking and married anyway)

Even when I was 320 pounds I could go run a mile. It was tough and slow but I used to run marathons when I was a teenager and I think I was born to do it.

Now of course I am running seriously again (fast and long distance) and am starting to be fairly comfortable with my weight. I eat around 1500 calories a day but sometimes I'll eat more.

I never had any loose skin problems. And all stretch marks I got from the weight gain vanished seemingly overnight when I lost the weight. I think I got a bit lucky when it comes to the loose skin/stretch marks stuff.

People will say they are fat because of genetics. This is bullshit. If you understand thermodynamics, you'll realize that the energy requirements can only be a fairly simple function of height, weight, gender, age, and that having a caloric deficit MUST result in overall weight loss.

You'll frequently have glycogen stores (from underused muscles), water weight, and shit in your system. These will cause your weight to fluctuate tons and you'll whine and moan about it as I did, until you realize that you probably shouldn't weigh yourself more frequently than once a week.

Another thing. It didn't matter WHAT I ate. All that mattered is that I kept precise count of calories consumed. There would be weeks where I'd eat nothing but junky fast food/candy/etc. And I felt just as great as I always did and lost just as much. It's just that if you want to have a Big Mac, that's two lean cuisine type meals down the drain for one small burger. Worth it? Not to me. But Taco Bell stuff? Worth it. Because those tacos aren't that many calories.

So the "eat healthy" advice? nonsense
"exercise" advice? nonsense (though if you want to have a snack, then go run off the same or more calories so you don't have to feel that shitty "wow that was not worth cheating" feeling)

Just figure out what your basal rate is, force a deficit. And don't have those stupid "cheat meals" or "cheat days" because they will totally make your calories per day for the whole week come up above your BMR or close enough to it to halt losses.

You'll get discouraged all the time. Sometimes for 2 or 3 weeks in a row. If you stick with it and maintain an average below your BMR, you'll lose it all. Don't forget that your BMR will decrease as you enter the dreaded "starvation mode" and as you become lighter.

It's about willpower, which for me was a nonissue. I just quit eating a lot cold turkey one day and haven't looked back. And generally I'm not that great at sticking to things, so if I can do it... some of you might be able to. (I'm realizing as I say it that despite thinking that I'm not that great at sticking to things.. I'm probably a lot better at it than any of you.. so.. whatever. you still might as well give it a shot)

tl;dr - I didn't exercise or watch what I ate. I only counted calories and I lost 100 pounds. I'm still losing and I'll continue to lose but I'm in great shape now and could outrun/outsprint/outtennis/outlift any of you. Or at least the vast majority.

[Souichirou]

2800 instead of 1700 sounds a bit much, I usually have just a bowl of cereal for breakfast, big salad for lunch and whatever my parents cook for dinner which is always healthy, I find it hard to reach 1700 but trying to reach 2800 seems like i'd have to stuff my face a lot lol. Maybe i'm suppose to eat more for breakfast or something but I snack on ricecakes or fruit every few hours between breakfast lunch or dinner.

It isn't as hard as you think it's quite easy to actually go over. my breakfast is 4 eggs cook in a varieties of ways to keep things changing along with a bowl of oatmeal and a piece of fruit, eggs total around 285-320 calories depending on size, oatmeal with milk is 150-200 depending on how much milk, fruit depends on the fruit but that averages around 500-700 calories for breakfast. Lunch would consist of two chicken breast with 200-230 calories each depending on size, cup of broccoli 50 calories, cup of brown rice 200-220 calories totaling 600-700 calories, dinner would be lunch but half the serving of chicken and rice.

With it totals around 1700-1800 calories depending on the size of the portions not counting healthy snacks or protein shakes, I normally have 1 oz of almonds between breakfast, lunch and dinner totaling of 300 calories for both servings and protein shakes for the extra protein which total 111 calories per which I take after mid evening workout.

The 2800 I mentioned was maintenance to not gain nor lose weight when I was around where you are, 2300 calories is where you start to lose weight at a decent rate without starving yourself, just eat smart and always write it down to keep track of totals if you have anymore questions feel free to ask.