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Clive Thompson at Wired says that a fun way to lose weight is to turn dieting into a game. After watching one of his friends slim down with the Weight Watchers program, Thompson realized it was basically a type of role-playing game (RPG). He writes:
As with an RPG, you roll a virtual character, manage your inventory and resources, and try to achieve a goal. Weight Watchers’ points function precisely like hit points; each bite of food does damage until you’ve used up your daily amount, so you sleep and start all over again. Play well and you level up — by losing weight! And the more you play it, the more you discover interesting combinations of the rules that aren’t apparent at first. Hey, if I eat a fruit-granola breakfast and an egg-and-romaine lunch, I’ll have enough points to survive a greasy hamburger dinner for a treat!
Even the Weight Watchers web tool is amazingly game-like. It has the poke-around-and-see-what-happens elegance you see in really good RPG game screens. Accidentally snack on a candy bar and ruin your meal plan for the day? No worries: Just go into the database and see what spells — whoops, I mean foods — you can still use with your remaining points.
And those 35 extra points you get every week? They’re like a special buff or potion — a last-ditch save when you’re on the ropes.
I’ve never used Weight Watchers, so I can’t comment on its game-like aspects. However, I’ve spent long stretches of my life carefully counting calories, and I can attest that this, too is very game-like. So, too, is exercise. One of the reasons I keep detailed stats on my running and biking is that the stats keep me motivated. I’m able to seem my progress. It’s fun for me to watch my improvement. It really does feel like a game.
Many other people have realized that people can be more motivated toward health and fitness if it’s disguised as “fun”. The one hundred pushup project sort of operates on this principle: make the gradually increasing pushups into a challenge in order to motivate participants. It works.
I believe Nintendo has actually tapped into this with their latest video game console. Kris and I don’t keep our Wii in the media room — we keep it in the exercise room. With the yoga mats, fitness ball, and weights, we have an old television and the Nintendo Wii. Kris uses Wii Fit nearly every day. Last winter, I played hours of Dance Dance Revolution. She and I both like the idea of games that require more than just sitting on the couch. (We have only a single chair in the exercise room — we always stand to play the Wii.)
Making fitness fun can help motivate those who might otherwise lose interest. I do suspect there are dangers in making people think that eating right and exercising must be a game, but at the same time I think any move toward fitness is better than none at all.
Footnote: Dance Dance Revolution II is coming out for Wii in under a month! Time for me to practice my dance moves.
Mac
9 responses so far ↓
1 Gooniette // Aug 26, 2008 at 8:11 am
We just got the Wii and Dance Dance Revolution.
And it’s hard!
I feel like such a loser just trying to hit the right steps on the Beginner level.
I do like the way it keeps me on my feet and off my butt though.
2 Fit Bottomed Girls // Aug 26, 2008 at 8:44 am
You’re right, it definitely should be fun. The less you dread a workout the more likely you’ll be to do it again. And then maybe meander over to other awful forms of working out…like running.
3 Desiree // Aug 26, 2008 at 9:25 am
I really dislike DDR for Wii. I loved the Playstation versions and actually only bought my PS2 for DDR. Also my mat is already severely messed up after only using it a few times.
My old generic PS2 mat is still kicking!
I love running by the way…It’s only fun outside though.
4 born again runner // Aug 26, 2008 at 9:33 am
My wife has been using Weight Watchers online with great success for the past several months. It’s all about making smart eating decisions and portion control!
In addition to the “buffer” points, you also get activity points. So if she does go over her points for the week, she knows she can get in an extra run or hop on the bike to make up for it.
5 Andrew is getting fit // Aug 26, 2008 at 11:23 am
Heh! We’ve been levelling up by transforming into sleek warriors!
6 Courtney // Aug 26, 2008 at 1:25 pm
There used to be a website called “Weight Watchers for Gamers” that operates on the same concept.
Yes, my gamer husband and I “tweak” on Weight Watchers and it DOES feel like a game! We allow ourselves to use the weekly points on a binge-fest once every week, and we plan out carefully what we want that week. However, it is fun to find ways to make our favorites lower in points the rest of the week! You can “tweak” recipes by lowering fat, lowering calories, or increasing fiber (by adding vegetables). So you can actually lower the points of scrambled eggs, or at least keep them the same, by adding spinach or other veggies!
You do have to be careful when tweaking, though. Eating 10 zero-point snacks does NOT equal 0 points.
You can also turn exercise into a game. In my karate class yesterday we did this. We drew cards and did that number of pushups, with different types of pushups for each suit. (Everyone groaned when the instructor drew an ace for 15, a 10, and another 10 in a row!)
Then after class we all stood in a circle and played catch with a medicine ball, then came up with different endurance exercises and saw how long we could do them and how hard we could make them.
If my eighth-grade gym-class dropout self saw me now, she just wouldn’t believe it.
7 Leah // Aug 26, 2008 at 8:30 pm
reminds me of this comic: http://xkcd.com/189/
8 Metroknow // Aug 26, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Wow I had never thought of it this way….All kinds of software lights just flickered on in some nether region of my brain.
I am actually writing a post on home exercise equipment, and I just realized…maybe it is all just to justify my need for a Wii…..
9 SmarterFitter Blog » Blog Archive » Weight Loss for Nerds: Treat it like an RPG // Aug 26, 2008 at 11:00 pm
[...] J.D. points out on Get Fit Slowly, the one hundred pushups challenge operates on this principle. …make the gradually increasing [...]
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