Four Lessons. Role Play Can Teach You Fitness
In most people’s minds, gamers are far from the muscular, fit athletes they aspire to be … perhaps because video games are often accused of raising a generation of slackers. But there are actually many suitable players , and many of them will draw parallels to the role-playing games they know and love when talking about how they approached.
At first glance, this topic sounds like “that cigarettes can teach you good habits,” so let’s dispel some myths. Video games don’t make people fat. Sure, playing too much can take your time to exercise, but in the current obesity crisis, overconsumption of calories is to blame , not lack of exercise.
Everyone starts from the first level
Chrono Trigger has an Easter egg that allows you to fight the final boss (Lavos) in the first few minutes of the game. After Lavos hits your group, you laugh at the foolishness of fighting him as a level 1 character and keep playing anyway.
Unfortunately, many people don’t think about fitness that way. They immediately jump into grueling CrossFit workouts and painful early morning runs, then wonder why they can’t maintain their regimen.
Just like improving in a video game, fitness is a skill and you start at level one. You level up by learning the basics of calories, how to make a meal plan, how to count your macros, and how to do basic exercises. Then and only then can you move on to more difficult battles.
You can only choose one class
In role-playing games such as Everquest, you usually choose a class for your character. For example, you cannot be a Warrior, Wizard, Monk, Mage, and Necromancer at the same time. Of course, there are hybrids like the Shadow Knight, which is a cross between Necromancer and Warrior, but you live in compromise without mastering either class.
Newbies often want to be well versed in everything. They want to prepare for a marathon, lose weight, and get stronger right away. Do you know why you never see a bodybuilder who also runs marathons? (I only know of one thing.) This is because it is really difficult and usually a recipe for failure.
Choose one fitness class that suits your current goals. If you want to lose weight, focus on weight loss (a mixture of diet and strength training), if you want to end up running a marathon, maybe try a program like Couch to 5k . Don’t try to do all of them. Once you have chosen your “class”, do the minimum you need to do until you get better. The good news is that, unlike many video games, you can always change your class later without losing a ton of progress.
Take advantage of savepoints
Savepoints are great and they exist in real life. To demonstrate, I’ll use an example from a previous article that used Final Fantasy II:
Zeromus looked like the 1992 Honey Badger for Nintendo. No matter how hard I tried, I could not beat him. I’ve tried literally hundreds, if not thousands of times, but it just didn’t die.
Every time I fought him, the same order of events repeated over and over again.
I prepared my group for battle, used the same set of spells and attacks, and like clockwork, he performed the same movements and killed the good guys as predictably as in the last episodes of a typical Game of Thrones season.
As with the less extreme version of the Chrono Trigger example, the problem was simple: my group was not up to par to survive the final boss fight.
Let’s go back to fitness. You may keep trying to lose the last ten pounds, but end up constantly falling off your horse, overeating, and returning to your previous weight.
But you don’t start from the beginning. You are still making progress. It’s tempting to drop the towel and give up, but you’re actually still starting from the last save point. When faced with a setback, compare the progress of the date to your starting point and show some gratitude to yourself. This is your real “save point”.
Before trying the final boss fight again, level up a bit. In the last ten pounds example, you may need to take a break from your diet , build extra muscle, or store a calorie surplus for a while before you try again. The worst thing you can do is calm down from the rage, which many people do instead.
You don’t judge your character
When you are given the main character at the beginning of the game, you play with the hand with which you got it. Sure, you might not like the fact that the protagonist of Final Fantasy VII wields a huge sword with hands that look like hooves, but you play anyway.
Now compare this with real life. How many times have you been too paralyzed to progress in fitness because you judged yourself – maybe you hate your weight, despise your body shape, have a poor metabolism? More often than not, they turn into rationalizations more than anything else.
Instead, think of yourself as the protagonist of the game. Don’t judge yourself. I usually say “forgive yourself,” but in this case there is nothing to forgive because you cannot control the attributes that have been given to you. However, you are responsible for completing the game.
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