Freak Out Day

Miraculously, I made it to the gym today and didn't play World of Warcraft. So that kinda makes up for my breaking the rules yesterday.

I'm kind of surprised I made it because I woke up with a headache and was in a shitty mood. I wound up drop kicking our crappy vacuum cleaner and throwing it in the trash. I'm not sure what is going on, but I felt like I was at the end of my rope today.

I think more than a little has to do with feeling trapped. Trapped by work, living situation, my health. Maybe signing up for DailyBurn and starting to count the numbers inside my food made feel cornered.

After my temper tantrum I went to the pharmacy to grab a prescription I had allowed to lapse (I take Amitryptaline to regulate headaches that stem from my back pain).

I felt like I needed a work out, which is a good thing, I suppose. I ran for about twenty five minutes and felt worn out and less on edge afterwards.

I haven't logged any of the food I ate since breakfast, though. Not sure I want to know.

First Cheat

Today's the first day I played World of Warcraft and didn't exercise. I have an excuse. And it is not a terribly feeble one. We're getting a shitload of rain, which to most places isn't a big deal. But in the high desert that means lots of flooding and other bad stuff.

So I bailed on the gym. I did, though have lunch with the wife at Red Robin. That probably won't be happening any time soon. Because at the suggestion of my friend Chris I started using DailyBurn to log my calories. And I'll be damned if I'm going to waste half my daily allowance of calories on shitty chain food.

My WoW cheating was with my Worgen group. Only three of us could make it so we used the Dungeon Finder to hit Deadmines. The first group was a bit of a clusterfuck, but once the moron dropped things shook out a little better. We made it through (a little hastily for my taste) and all got at least one blue.

I'd still rather play with friends, but I think I can accept a PUG every once in a while.

Week 2

I almost lost my momentum. After a weekend off I was able to get myself motivated to work out on Monday and Tuesday. But work got the better of me, distracting me all day. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were no exercise days. I guess I did alright because I didn't play WoW either.

I got back on the wagon Saturday and ran on the treadmill. Today I squeezed a quick upper body work out between playing board games and WoW.

Our five-man group of Draenai had a planned dungeon run in Auchindoun. These are characters we rolled when Burning Crusade came out. We're taking our time with them.

According to the gym scale I weighed 268 today. That's two pounds more that I originally logged. I'm gonna blame Outback Steakhouse for that. If I don't start seeing some loss I'm going to start adjusting my diet.

Hope to spend this week on my noob Worgen and my Death Knight. Eufaula is just about done with Vashj'ir. Apparently the last quest there is bugged. Lame.

Day 5

I can't remember the last time I exercised five days in a row. I'm terribly surprised that I've managed to stick to my routine this long. And after five days at the gym I feel like I should earn an achievement or something.

Today I hit the treadmill again racking up very similar stats to Wednesday. 2.46 miles, 232 calories over 35 minutes.

Today, again, seemed like an easy day to skip out on. I started my morning with an interview for work. I spent thirty minutes grilling J. Allen Brack from Blizzard on the history of Warcraft (see a future issue of GamePro for the results of my interview).

As soon as I hung up the phone a couple of friends came over to play board games. We pushed bits around until six o'clock, leaving me only two hours to hit the gym before my scheduled get together with my guildies.

I planned ahead a little and made sure to eat a good lunch so that I wasn't too hungry to work out when the evening rolled around. That way, when the board games were put away I could walk my friends out the door and haul ass to the gym.

The run was good. Only a little bit of complaint from my left shin at the beginning of the run. I listened to Doomriders while I ran, which kept me pumped and angry.

I made it home with a half hour to spare, washed my face and logged into WoW. Our group ran Drak'Tharon one last time (finally finishing the quest where you-know-who shows up at the end) and ported back to Dalaran to do the Violet Hold instance. It's amazing how much you can get done in two hours now. Remember when instances took an entire evening? I love that you get in and out of two in just as much time.

Day 4

Today was another tough day. I spent most of it cleaning the house and wasn't done until around four or five. I was really tempted to blow the gym off, but I had a scheduled run with my five-man group rolling through old Wrath content.

So I sucked it up and went to the gym (remembering to check in on Foursquare). I did a leg workout that was given to me by my old personal trainer, but it had been so long since he showed me the exercises that I couldn't figure out a couple of the exercises. I substituted machines -- wound up doing five or six different exercises. Four sets, 12 reps per.

It wasn't the most intense work out, but I'm not going to take points off considering it was my fourth day in a row at the gym.

Our five-man run today went smoothly, we blew through Drak'Tharon keep, which was pretty fun. We're gearing up for the Violent Hold next.

Last night I was up until around two with my death knight. I got her just under level 82 questing in the Shimmering Expanse. I got to the bit where you play as a Naga (you're actually reliving flashbacks). I had a sliver of rest when I was done so I think I'm going to give her a break tonight. The rest I gain tonight will probably be enough that I'll never have to play purple again.

Day 3

Today was the toughest day for me so far. After a couple of days its easy to lose enthusiasm for this whole exercise thing. On top of that I met somebody for lunch. I live in Bumfuck, Egypt, so that means a couple hours of driving to civilization. I didn't get home until four o'clock or so. Any excuse will do, right?

So, I realized yesterday that I talked up my World of Warcraft goals, but not my health goals. I guess that says a lot about my mindset. So basically I don't want die. And I don't want to become a huge fat dork. But those aren't really constructive, easy to measure goals. So for the sake of productivity I'm hoping to get down to my ideal weight and get thin enough that I can fit into normal sized clothes. My nice cut-and-sew stuff has to be XXL and even then they feel tight sometimes.

As far as World of Warcraft goes last night wound up being mellow. I got my scheduling wrong (our "other guys" group meets tonight) so I spent a couple of hours with my death knight in The Shimmering Expanse. I love the story and setting down there -- especially Nespirah. The scale of the place is just bananas.

Anyway, I had a decent workout today. Spent 35 minutes on the treadmile. Alternated five walking briskly, five running. 2.44 miles. 234 calories. I feel pretty good, but still spent.

I noticed that they're having some kind of Foursquare promotion at 24 Hour Fitness, so I'm going to make sure to check in every time I work out. Maybe shooting for mayor there will give me the same kind of satisfaction that in-game achievements do.

Final thought: was thinking of an awesome 24 Hour Fitness / World of Warcraft cross promotion. Imagine how effective my work out regime would be if the computers at 24 Hour Fitness spoke directly to my authenticator. No play unless you physically check in at the gym. Your reward would be something like +5% to xp gain or something.

Lastly: The image above is me at Blizzcon. I'm the fat hippie on the right. Lets call that my "before."

Day 2

So far so good. Last night I got to play some World of Warcraft -- had a bit of a binge really. Started the evening at eight with my "static" group. That's a fixed party of five who all agree not to go level up. We schedule weekly dungeon runs and only play when the whole group can turn up. Since we're all adults that's not terribly often (once a week if we're lucky). Still, we're up to Ahn'kahet.

But that wasn't all of my play last night. At midnight I took my death knight (my only level 80) character into the new Cataclysm content. I love day one of MMOs. Spent a good four hours (half a level) there. Then, before bed I rolled a Worgen Druid just to reserve the character name I was hoping for.

Today I got to the gym around 4:30 and did the basic upper body work out my personal trainer outlined for me. That's six different arm and shoulder exercises. Three sets, twelve reps each. The experience was fairly joyless, but I got it done. Had a protein drink afterwards then went to Target to buy workout clothes -- I figured that not having clean clothes is a pretty lame excuse for not working out.

Day One

I've had chronic trouble motivating myself to exercise. This is a life-long problem that just gets more and more problematic as I get older.

Yesterday, totally on a whim, I decided to limit my World of Warcraft play to days that I've worked out. I'm not sure it that means I'll be playing less World of Warcraft or working out more. But I suppose if I can somehow link my exercise progress with the progress of my toons I'll have a better chance to find and stick to a routine.

I worked out this afternoon. After finishing my work I drove to the gym and spent about 25 minutes on the treadmill -- five minutes running, five minutes briskly walking. I'm in such bad shape that my shins started complaining immediately. And when I was running my heart rate buried the needle around 181. I suppose there's nowhere to go but up.

Here's the stats from my run:
Time: 25 min
Distance: 1.75 miles
Calories: 165

And for shits and giggles my starting weight is 266lbs. If it is not too disgusting I'll post a before picture on the blog.