The Video Game Diet

I have had minor struggles with my weight over the years. It had never gotten terribly overweight; I usually try to stay around 180 lbs., but every once in a while I would hit 200. That never lasted long, as my normal eating habits would kick back in and wean me back to the 180 mark.

For whatever reason, my student teaching last semester ruined my usual dietary plan. I'd finish the day, have some relatively minor gripe about a student, and say to myself, "Screw it! You deserve a Blizzard after this day!" Coupled with my inability to control my portions (Hamburger Helper is not designed for one), and my hopeless addiction to caffeine (soft drinks, not coffee), I suddenly ballooned to 230 lbs.

I didn't have a scale at my apartment in Bryan, TX, so at the time I didn't actually know what my weight was. But I could easily tell I was much larger than normal, because I couldn't fit into anything anymore. I finally was able to find a scale when I was out interviewing for a teaching job, and then I knew I needed to do something.

Fad diet programs never appeal to me; neither do drastic exercise routines. I understand that I need to do something other than slothing around my house or apartment, but you're not going to find me doing 100 crunches a day. Some exercises are completely out of the question for me, anyway. I have abnormally flat feet, so any extended walking or running causes massive muscles cramps near the arches (parenthetically, because they are nonexistent) and throbbing shin splints. It's not the motion that does me in, it's the rhythmic, extended pounding on the ground that causes the pain.

My initial exercise idea was an elliptical machine, since it covers nearly the same bases as walking, running, or cycling, and like cycling the platform your feet press against follows their natural motion. And, as I am a terribly nerdy man, I had recently bought Pokemon Soul Silver, and the game came with a pedometer called a Pokewalker that could be used to level up any Pokemon that you caught on your Nintendo DS cartridge and transferred to the device. So now I had, in my mind at least, a tangible reason to get off my butt and work out.

And I did that for a while, and it worked for a while, but I got tired of the routine of it all: get up in the morning, walk to the apartment's gym room, use the elliptical for 15-20 minutes, walk back to the apartment, take a shower. When I moved back to my parent's house for the summer, I switched to playing tennis with my friend, which is a more enjoyable exercise. But I still needed to change my diet. My usual eating habits are good at staying at a certain level rather than lose weight. So what did I change?

This is where The Video Game Diet comes in. I have subscribed to this method of losing weight several times, and it has always worked for me. While there maybe more requirements for other people, the three basic ingredients for the diet are as follows:

• One or more thoroughly engrossing video games with either perpetual re-playability or substantially long gameplay.
• Easy access to water or other light drinks.
• Difficult access to snacks.

For those that might not see it yet, the diet is simple. Play a game that you cannot walk away from easily, and when you get hungry, drink water. You still eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, but for me, if I have something to do, I'm not bored. And if I'm not bored, I don't just find something to eat to get through the boredom.

In my opinion, there are three categories of games that accomplish the first requirement: Role-playing games (of any variety), strategy games (can be of any variety, but works better with turn-based strategy games), or online first-person shooters. Specific games that have worked well in the past are:

• World of Warcraft (the ultimate Video Game Diet game);
• The Sid Meier's Civilization series;
• The Halo series online multiplayer;
• Counter-Strike;
• Day of Defeat.

World of Warcraft and Civilization work well on some levels but not on others. Both games are essentially endless, but at any point you can walk away and abandon the no-snacks rule, so you need some self-discipline. Counter-Strike can have this problem as well, since you have only one life per round and the time it takes to end a round can sometimes be long enough for you to go and grab a bite to eat. But endlessly respawning games like Halo multiplayer and Day of Defeat require you to stay near the console or computer if you care about helping your team out.

I call it The Video Game Diet because video games are what I can easily become so engrossed in that I fight off my hunger pangs just so I can make it to the next level. But, really, a lot of things can be substituted for video games. A job works well, as it is harder to find readily available food to munch on unless you plan ahead or wish to spend money. I find movies and television not to be good compliments for the diet because of the lack of interactivity. You can become just as engaged in a television show as you can in a video game, but you can also have a big bowl of greasy, salty popcorn sitting in your lap.

The ultimate goal is to find a way to stay out of the kitchen. Whether that means running errands all day or playing a campaign of Civilization is up to you.