The World of Warcraft Diet
Here's the theory. Maybe it will pan out:
Ordinarily the most weight I've ever lost on a regular diet is about 20lbs.
Interestingly, the highest level I ever reached in my sporadic experience in World of Warcraft is also 20.
My dieting is also sporadic.
So there's this thing they call gamification. You may or may not have heard about it.
It goes like this:
Many experiences in life are actually very rewarding but they don't FEEL rewarding.
Likewise many games are essentially nothing more than a waste of time but they have ways of making you feel like you achieved something important.
Gamification is mapping the various achievement sensations in games to the actual achievements of performing a truly rewarding activity. Things like leveling up, awarding points, collecting large numbers of shiny things.
Lots of people have attempted to gamify boring stuff which has to be done but frankly feels like a total drag.
Chore Wars was an example of this, awarding XP for members of your guild (household) for completing quests (chores) which are assigned by other members of the guild (your housemates). Essentially the "Do the dishes" quest is added, someone does it claims the XP, this XP then levels you up so you can see who does more around the house, more importantly, makes a little contest out of doing housework to spur people on to do it.
Fitocracy removes the medieval RPG trappings of chore wars to present a simple "you must run this far for the XP" type task, which is entirely self audited.
Whilst walking around a local chalk pit I contemplated ways in which I could harness this power for myself. Maybe write a game where I could enter my weight and level up, possibly put it online, get other people to join, make it some kind of group experience. Then I realised that there was a much easier way that wouldn't require me to spend months developing and testing a game before even starting my diet.
So I'm on the World of Warcraft diet.
Basically I marked down my weight at the start and downloaded the game. I allow myself to play up to and in the level of the number of pounds I lose from that starting figure.
First pound lost, create a character (at level one).
Second pound lost, level up to level 2.
and so on.
I've recorded my WoW level and pounds lost, so if I want to play WoW the weight lost must be higher than my level. Also it takes the guesswork out of when to weigh myself. All that am I heavier in the evening, am I lighter in a morning?
Who cares.
I weigh myself when I want to play. If I don't come in light enough... NO GAME.
Also given that the starter edition doesn't stop until level 20, I can actually see whether this works before I pay a penny into the game.
Fool proof plan.
Lets see if it works.
Ordinarily the most weight I've ever lost on a regular diet is about 20lbs.
Interestingly, the highest level I ever reached in my sporadic experience in World of Warcraft is also 20.
My dieting is also sporadic.
So there's this thing they call gamification. You may or may not have heard about it.
It goes like this:
Many experiences in life are actually very rewarding but they don't FEEL rewarding.
Likewise many games are essentially nothing more than a waste of time but they have ways of making you feel like you achieved something important.
Gamification is mapping the various achievement sensations in games to the actual achievements of performing a truly rewarding activity. Things like leveling up, awarding points, collecting large numbers of shiny things.
Lots of people have attempted to gamify boring stuff which has to be done but frankly feels like a total drag.
Chore Wars was an example of this, awarding XP for members of your guild (household) for completing quests (chores) which are assigned by other members of the guild (your housemates). Essentially the "Do the dishes" quest is added, someone does it claims the XP, this XP then levels you up so you can see who does more around the house, more importantly, makes a little contest out of doing housework to spur people on to do it.
Fitocracy removes the medieval RPG trappings of chore wars to present a simple "you must run this far for the XP" type task, which is entirely self audited.
Whilst walking around a local chalk pit I contemplated ways in which I could harness this power for myself. Maybe write a game where I could enter my weight and level up, possibly put it online, get other people to join, make it some kind of group experience. Then I realised that there was a much easier way that wouldn't require me to spend months developing and testing a game before even starting my diet.
So I'm on the World of Warcraft diet.
Basically I marked down my weight at the start and downloaded the game. I allow myself to play up to and in the level of the number of pounds I lose from that starting figure.
First pound lost, create a character (at level one).
Second pound lost, level up to level 2.
and so on.
I've recorded my WoW level and pounds lost, so if I want to play WoW the weight lost must be higher than my level. Also it takes the guesswork out of when to weigh myself. All that am I heavier in the evening, am I lighter in a morning?
Who cares.
I weigh myself when I want to play. If I don't come in light enough... NO GAME.
Also given that the starter edition doesn't stop until level 20, I can actually see whether this works before I pay a penny into the game.
Fool proof plan.
Lets see if it works.