Blogging has been a struggle as of late – I am playing four games, four of which are “out of date”, and I am plodding along at my own pace within them. I am not discovering anything new about these games (or myself playing them) and all of that adds up to the deeper questions of “where do I fit in” and “can I produce anything worth reading” in and for Blognation. High School all over again! Thankfully now that I am in my 40’s I do not have the care or worry about what other people think of me, because you get to that point in your life where you just realize you are what you are and you have what you have. This goes to most things physical, emotional, and spiritual at this stage. Perhaps that realization is enough to share and the young whipper snappers can appreciate that! Although there are far more persons with far more wise views on life in general, and as already mentioned, I am at peace with that.
Should I write about my EQ Wizard grinding CB again (for joy and levels), my level 16 max-charisma persona in Fallout 4 saving the wasteland (one cleared out building at a time), my new Ranger in Pillars of Eternity sorting out what it is he needs to sort out, or my Sword/Fist Templar plodding through Egypt in TSW? This is where my foreseeable gaming is taking me – I am enjoying each in the bite sizes I have and do not feel the need to venture into anything new. I am more likely to go in the other direction and go to older titles that are sitting installed.  This makes me a pretty terrible gaming commentator (writing style, grammar, and other generalities aside!) although I have still been poking my nose into other blogs to comment here and there. I love consuming community generated content.
So I am venturing into some newer territory and will be trying some posts on the ‘Life’ part of the tagline of the blog (‘Life and Interwebs’) and talk about things I have learned about health. Not just physical health, but mental and emotional as well. Oh, I’ll tie it into gaming where I can and where it makes sense, but Arywen noted once that gamers typically (or stereotypically?) tend to use their spare time to game instead of eating healthy and/or using their time to exercise. I am in the food industry (healthier for you fast casual) and have made health important in my life. Not above all else, but it is there as part of my life balance. And it wasn’t always that way.
in 2013 I was 230 pounds and smoked a pack a day. I loved smoking. I smoked the first thing when I woke up, and last thing before I went to bed. I was active in some sports (baseball and hockey) but those were largely leagues based around “beer” and camaraderie. Skate for an hour and then drink 4-6 beer and eat 2 lbs of chicken wings. The activities after the athletics not only completely negated the activity itself, but probably everything active for the entire day. I didn’t sleep well, I didn’t manage stress well, I didn’t eat well, and although I was a generally pleasant person to be around, I wasn’t really happy. I had a great job. I had a great kid. My wife and I weren’t really connected but we had a good life together. Things just fit out of balance.
Fast forward to today and I do an activity nearly every single day. I get up at 5:00am and exercise before the rest of my family gets up. I cook everyday, and make food that tastes amazing AND is healthy too. I am going to share a lot of my journey with you here, in bits and pieces and what I feel is relevant. Maybe it will inspire you to make small, positive changes in your life. Maybe you don’t care and are already completely happy with where you are in your life. I promise nothing here but to share my honesty on what I do and who I am, and how I feel it has benefited me. I am in the best place in my life, for the most part, and it has had a positive outlook on my stress, my relationships, my work, my free time, and overall, my outlook on life. I will share mindsets, workouts, heck, even recipes! Plus whatever good habits I think I have developed that are worth sharing. The main starting point is that it has been a long journey, I am far from perfect, but focus on it every day and feel like I moving in the right direction. I am not not a doctor or professional trainer, so take any advice through that lens.
Starting small here, and tying it back to the title, I bought a Fitbit. Not just for myself, but for my entire corporate team (45 of them). “Gamifying” health is one easy way to get gamers started. Fitbit has a clear set of daily goals (that you can set for your own pace) that is in simple format, and covers all aspects of basic health. Number of steps, glasses of water, calories burned, hours of sleep, number of floors climbed, daily activity minutes, and miles walked. It is on your phone or on a webpage and is just a constant, small reminder of some small but important things you should be doing everyday. The fun part has also been tracking how things I do affect my body. Here, for example, is one night when I played hockey (complete with a picture of me playing hockey, which Fitbit doesn’t do)
Now I am pretty sure the Fitbit slid over my taped wrist at that big drop off, but other than that is neat to see. Generating interest is part of generating habits – you get interested in a game and you play. So, as a motivator, the Fitbit has been a hit. Same for the team – you see people challenging each other and pushing each other to be more active. It has been fun to see. It will be even more interesting to see how long that effect lasts. I’ll still talk about gaming that feels right to talk about, and this isn’t a wholesale change in blog format or anything – just a newer focus I am going to play on some posts with in the new year. I have a vacation coming up (hot, island, far south!) but it will be fun to step into this just in time for everyone’s resolutions in the new year.