Tag Archives: Weight

When Gaming is Unhealthy

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Today I took of my mother’s wedding ring. I’ve had this ring on my left middle finger for years. I’ve never taken it off. Yet today I have. Because today I realized that if I don’t take it off now, they may have to cut it off my finger in a few years if I keep going the way I do.

I’ve never been an extremely skinny person. Well maybe as a kid. I used to be a gymnast and would train two times a week followed by competitions on the weekends. I also swam and played outside a lot during those days. I was skinny then. Healthy, happy and pretty strong for a girl my age. 
When I hit puberty I started getting curves. I had, and still have, above average breasts. I suddenly got hips and I started to get a bit chubby. However with our mandatory gym classes and me dancing two times a week you didn’t really notice. During high school I’ve never once felt fat. I’ve never once felt the need to lose weight or to look at myself in the mirror and feel like my clothes didn’t fit me right. I was normal, or as normal as you could expect any 16 year old to be. I also didn’t game.

When I started University I also started to gain weight. I spent a lot of my time gaming and quit sports alltogether. I managed to get back on track around the end of my education when I was working for the Dutch National mail. Especially the two months of summer where I would be delivering mail 5 days a week. I walked 3 hours a day then, atleast, and was at a healthy weight which made me happy. I didn’t game as much then and was much more focused on my social life and being healthy.

Right now however I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been. So heavy infact that it’s starting to give me issues. I have a lot of backpains. I’ve developed asthma. My legs, and calves in particular, hurt a lot when I have to walk for an extended amount of time. My feet have gotten wider and I have painful spots on my toes that I’ve never had before. All in all I am in the worst shape of my life and I have no idea where to start breaking this circle. A large part of it comes down to me not getting enough movement in during the day. Especially on the weekends where I like to sit and game a lot I notice that I should be up and about instead. It’s hard and it’s affecting my health. I’ve always noticed a correlation that I become unhealthy when I spend more time on games. Games are a way for me to escape the harsh reality that I should not sit on my ass all day and evening and instead do something more healthy with my time. It’s hard to motivate yourself though, especially when just sitting down and gaming is so easy.

I’m trying to take more breaks from my games. I try to spend more time on the crosstrainer we have in the attic. I try to spend my lunch breaks walking in town so that I get a bit of movement in. I don’t really live in a very wooded area or an area where you want to go outside and walk. Yet I think I’ll have to find some way to enjoy myself outside and away from games more. Before they do actually have to cut off jewellry…

Dietary Restrictions and PS4 Time

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Last few weeks I’ve been slightly pigging out when it comes to food. March is a ridiculous month when it comes to birthdays so every weekend I was stuffing my face with all types of snacks, crisps, cake and other shit. Obviously this is bad when you’re trying to lose weight, so I’m putting myself back on some dietary restrictions. Trying to eat healthier (get some fruit instead of candy) and just eating less in general. I’m aiming for eating around 1200-1400 calories a day, mostly because 1200 is the minimum amount you  need to eat to keep on feeling healthy, and I don’t want my body to go into starvation mode.
Next to dietary restrictions I’m also trying to set some rules on my money spending habits. I’ve been spending a LOT of money on my new Wii U and getting games for it… So I should lay low for a while and stop spending. I’ve given myself a budget of €100 to spend each month on games and/or make-up. Seeing as Ratchet and Clank comes out in a few weeks that’s already some bucks gone, so I really need to think about what I want to buy next to that.

Seeing as it’s Easter, and I managed to get 5 days of free time due to lucky scheduling, I’ve been spending a lot of time just playing games. I can finally sit down for a longer time and get stuff done, instead of getting 2-3 hours of playtime in on a weekday where you can barely do a dungeon or mission in a game and then you need to start watching the clock to log off. I’ve also taken the opportunity to binge watch my way through Daredevil season 2 (which I loved) and start watching Jessica Jones (which I don’t nearly love as much). All in all I’m really using this elongated weekend to relax, play and get some “me” time in.

Sandrian Noble 19/03/2016 13:59:22

PS4 Shenaningans
I’ve been spending a lot of time playing on my PS4 in various games. Mostly FFXIV and The Division and I’ve been making some steady progress in both games.
In FFXIV I finally managed to get my hands on the Vath flying mount and oh my god it’s adorable. I really like the didgeridoo type of sound when it makes as I’m flying everywhere and it just reminds me of a really weird seahorse.
The Vath itself have been a silly but cute beasttribe. It reminded me in many ways of the Borg in Star Trek, and Square Enix did it’s best to incorporate some clear references to them aswell. I’m kind of sad that the Vath and Vanu Vanu appear to be the only beast tribes for this expansion, although you never know with Square Enix and maybe they will let us rank up with the Moogles aswell? Who knows.

Tom Clancy's The Division™_20160314230045

Division seems to be the hot game of the moment right now and ofcourse I couldn’t stay behind in playing it. Although I might not be as fast as most people playing, I’ve been making some steady progress. I really love roaming around in New York discovering stuff. I like taking my time and going into buildings and alleys and collecting all the random little lore bits, instead of just rushing ahead through the story without giving other things a second look.
I’m currently level 15 and roaming around in the Clinton District. I won’t deny that due to the nature of the game I’ve almost thrown my controller through the room in frustration multiple times. Shooters aren’t really my main genre and even if this is a more tactical one, I die a lot and am pretty bad in weapon handling.

The only real downside to Division for me seems to be the female character creator and the fact that lady characters absolutely look godawful if you give them a headpiece to wear. I’m really disappointed about this. Although Ubisoft clearly tried to attract a wider audience with this game, I wish they would actually not just give us variations of butch lesbian haircuts to choose from. Not to mention the seriously weird ass options you have for Caucasian female faces.
Ohwell.

 

Sunday Scale: February

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No picture today, because there is no real “progress” to show.
Which is weird, because I feel like I’m losing weight, and my colleagues are commenting on me losing weight… But my scale still shows 70 kg. So either my scale is broken? Or I’m not losing weight at all.

I have been keeping my calories in check and have had a few days where I went over my budget. But nothing serious enough to nullify all the days I have been able to stick to my diet, so I’m not really sure why I’m not seeing any improvement. I was losing 1kg per month so far and it seemed to have stalled a bit. I guess one of the reasons is that I still haven’t been able to motivate myself to go to the gym regularly.  I had an excuse for one week since I had to sit with my foot up, but for the rest of the time I don’t really have an excuse other than “I’m dumb and lazy”.
Which causes me to kind of get into this spiral of feeling tired because I don’t do anything but if I don’t do anyting I feel tired. It’s hard to break out of and I’m really trying my best, but I feel like I’m stalling and I’m not sure how to get out of it.

Sunday Scale – January

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Hello everyone and welcome to my monthly weight check up column type thing. I’m actually not sure how to call this but I just want to check in once a month and “report” on how my weight loss is going. I’m planning to do this on the first sunday of every month… Which will also be the time where I choose to stand on the scale.
I don’t like looking at my weight, since it’s mostly a confirmation of the horrible year that 2015 has been for me, marked by inactivity, binge eating and lots of therapy. I’m slowly coming down from that again now though and am currently 70kg (as you can see on the picture). As you can also see, my goal weight is 60kg and with the rate of weightloss I’m having now I should reach that goal in +/- 10 months.
I’m basing this off the fact that I’m more or less dropping 1kg per month now and that is on a pattern of technically not going to the gym and only on the activity I get on my workdays. I’m hoping to start dropping more weight, since one of my New Year’s resolutions was to go to the gym more often, which I am actually planning on doing.

Reward System
To keep me motivated to stay on my path of losing weight I bought a few Disney Infinity figurines yesterday that I want to use as reward every time I lose 2kg. Depending on how lazy I am this can mean I get one new figurine every two months… Or one every month. I’ve packed them up and stored them away in a cabinet so I don’t know which figurine is which anymore, thus making it a true surprise when I open one up. Something I will absolutely share on the blog here with you guys! I’m really excited to see this through and forcing myself to make atleast a monthly update will hopefully keep my motivation high aswell.

Music Wars
I entered an interesting conversation yesterday with a friend after he linked me a videoclip by Limp Bizkit… Who I never liked. I told him I could find way better music than that and with that started a sort of musical War. The rules are a bit unclear but mostly it’s about linking songs together. This can be done through various ways. It can be the same artist, there can be words shared in the title but also more complicated links are allowed like titles sharing a same theme or songs being on a same compilation CD. I even managed to link two songs together because they were directed by the same guy. Oh and I linked Led Zeppelin to The Who due to Keith Moon basically giving Led Zeppelin it’s name. So far it’s been a really fun game which we can keep on playing on and off inbetween the rest of our conversations. It took up most of my evening last night, preventing me from playing any games. But it’s totally worth it having a night filled with music and fun with a friend.

And who knew you could ever link Lady Gaga to U2?

2016, The Year I Finally Grow Up?

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Before looking ahead to 2016 and what the year will bring to my personal life, I need to look back at 2015 first.
To be fair, 2015 has been one of the roughest years in my life so far. Things were looking very grim at the start of the year when I decided to go into therapy to tackle my many many issues. Mostly they had to do with insecurities that were my demons and were driving me insane. I spent a good year of 2015 in therapy, from January untill September and even though I wasn’t always happy about going, I’m really glad I did.
I have some demons I will probably never get rid off. I’ve been firmly raised with the idea that nothing I did was ever good enough, so whenever something goes wrong I immediatly blame myself and kick myself over it again and again. I shouldn’t do that and I’ve come far enough to prevent it a lot now, but every now and then I still go back into that black mood. It’s almost cost me a friendship and probably a lot of job opportunities, but in the end I feel stronger for it. It was also the year where I was desperately trying to find a job and finally managed to get a permanent one in November.
For the first time in my life I have actually been challenged to manage my time better and even though the first weeks or so were panicky for me I think I finally managed to find a rythm that works and so I can start doing other stuff than just sleep when I come home from work.

I don’t want to look back on 2015 too much because all in all it has just been a painful year. Instead I want to focus on 2016 and how I plan to achieve my goals!

First off: The Weight Thing
I’ve been struggling with my weight for a very long time now and last year marked my peak where I was on my heaviest. A combination of not getting any exercise and binge eating brought me to 75kg, which is quite too heavy for a girl my length. Ever since I’ve started my job in November I’ve gotten a Fitbit and a more healthy lifestyle and the results are slowly paying off. Even though I’m not going to the gym as often as I should, I already am losing some weight and am hovering around 70kg now. My goal for 2016 is to get down to 60kg again and preferably a bit below. This means I will need to keep an eye on what I eat but also make more of an effort to go to the gym, especially on days where I don’t work.
My ultimate goal is to drop down all the way to <55kg but no further than 50. I have been down there in the past (about 3-4 years ago) so I know I can do it, it just requires some effort on my behalf.

To help me get there I decided to try out a reward system for myself. One of the game stores close to where I live has a sale on Disney Infinity Figurines and I’m planning to buy 3 of them and pack them up. Whenever I drop 2 kg’s I get to open one up and use it for my game. I really hope I can stick to this and that it will be positive reinforcement to keep on losing weight! Ofcourse this means I only have a reward for the first 6 kg’s going off, but I’ll think of more rewards later for when I hit 62 and ultimately 60kg. I want the 60 kg to be a big reward since it means I will have reached my goal then… Any suggestions in that area are therefore welcome!

Moving Out
The moment I got my job I started cheering. Not only does this mean I have a more permanent source of income… It also means I can start looking for a place to live.
I’m turning 27 in March and it really is time to get my own place. I’ve been desperately wanting to move out since I was 18, but real life happened and it’s been delayed and delayed. Now that I can start building a steady and solid income and put a lot of money aside I think moving out will be one of my biggest priorities in 2016.
This will mean I need to discuss a lot of money things with my dad and my uncle, mostly about whether I’m able to buy a house or that renting is my only option for now. For now I’m just waiting for my first real tax business so I can learn the ropes there and maybe get some money back that I’ve paid to much last year!

Other resolutions
Like most people I have to admit I’m more or less addicted to screen time. My job involves hanging infront of a computer three to four days a week and when I get home I immediatly transfer to another screen to play games. Put phone/tablet use inbetween and it feels like I am online 24/7. I want to try to limit this time by not allowing myself to take my tablet and/or phone to bed with me anymore.

Tieing in with this is my desire to finally get a healthy sleep rythm going in the first place. Going to bed early on workdays is something that is already happening, but I notice I just don’t get enough sleep. So I put an alarm on my phone that will go off at 22.45 on evenings where I have work the next morning, signaling me to close down and finish whatever it is I am doing and start heading to bed. This way I hope I’ll be able to fall asleep easier and at a more appropriate time so that I don’t feel so tired during the day anymore. Which also means I don’t feel the need to immediatly head to bed the moment I come home from work. If I can pull this off I will probably also feel much better on my days off… Which will help me be more energetic in general and pursue my weight loss goal by just going to the gym on the mornings I am off.

All in all I hope 2016 is the year where everything comes together for me. I’ve had such a shitty time last year on so many fronts… I really just need some positivity in my life.