I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and high bp in late April, with an a1c back then at 110 mmol/mol (12.2%). In the 3 months that followed I lost 30 kg from exercising and controlling my diet, while battling some medication side effects from the new (bp) meds. The diabetes meds were reduced and then removed as my a1c dropped, and it's now been steady at 30mmol/mol (4.9%) for months despite using no meds and eating relatively normally. These days, I essentially choose whole wheat when possible and avoid anything with a lot of pure sucrose, but otherwise eat whatever, using exercise to maintain my current weight and to help digestion, and it seems to work well.
I just hit a 250 day streak on my Apple Watch, meaning 250 days of at least 500 active calories burned and 30 min of high pulse activity. Most days it's above that, though my logic (later confirmed from seeing friends choosing the alternative) was that a reasonable minimum goal would allow me to have "days off" where I just do the minimum and still get in some exercise, instead of having a goal so high that days off would just be doing nothing.
I'm easily bored, so trying things like walking on a thread mill or using general gym equipment bores me within 2 minutes. Thus I quickly turned to fitness gaming. Here are some thoughts:
Pokemon Go
What is it?
A mobile game that uses GPS to track where you are, letting you find and catch Pokemon based on your real world activities.
Pros:
In the beginning especially, walking is a great way to "do something". Pokemon Go is a good way to give you an incentive to walk, and it syncing with Apple Health means you'll be rewarded for walking even when it's not running. Eggs, buddy pokemon, community days, etc are extra incentives to walk more. It's free to get into as long as you have a compatible phone, and it works everywhere, though you'll have more fun in areas with pokestops/gyms.
Cons:
There are quite a few mechanics here that slow you down. The animations feel like syrup when you're trying to "drive by catch" a pokemon while walking at a good speed, and the gym battles with their 2 min wait time are the death of proper exercise. Thus this option becomes less ideal the further in your journey you are. You're also dependent on living/walking near pokestops to keep it free, at least if you'll want to catch everything. Community days and such also have a paid component, and these components have become increasingly expensive lately.
Ring Fit Adventure
What is it?
A game for the Nintendo Switch that uses a special ring controller and accompanying game to let you play by doing core training,
Pros:
Trains other parts of your body than most fitness games. Eventually there is quite a bit of variety, and you can adjust he intensity. It's good at guiding you through it all, including stretching.
Cons:
Even now, months later when I'm in much better shape, five minutes of this makes my back hurt for a day, so I'm not actively using it. I also find it tedious, especially in the beginning when you haven't unlocked all exercises. It's also expensive, both in terms of needing a Switch (and not a Lite) and the game itself. Finally, this being Nintendo, they're trying to do everything themselves so there is no connectivity with fitness trackers whatsoever, on top of the built in version of that being absolute garbage.
Just Dance
What is it?
A dancing game that exists for most consoles now, and on mobile.
Pros:
Fairly easy to get into, since you can technically just use a smartphone + screen of some sort. Lots of options to play, such as a camera on an Xbox 360/One with Kinect, motion controllers on Switch/PS4, etc. Has hundreds of songs to pick from, and each new release of the game supports all old content. Multiplayer for extra fun. Enough options for both lighter and heavier exercise, and accessible to anyone regardless of how fit they are. The scoring system gives you something to work towards even wen you've played a song many times.
Cons:
Various control schemes have issues of some sort, and your score might be as much dependent on how you play as how good you are. There's a running subscription cost for access to all songs, though it's not too expensive. No support for custom songs means that even with hundreds available, there's a chance you'll run out of stuff you actually know. The lack of proper feedback means the game will repeatedly inform you that you didn't do it perfectly without really giving you any indication of why, and it might be very particular about how you perform a move (sometimes to the point where you have to do something else than what seems correct to get it to register, taking away from the experience somewhat).
Beat Saber
What is it?
VR game where you slap incoming boxes with virtual light sabers, to matching music.
Pros:
Very fun; everyone likes being a jedi. Can really get your working for it on higher difficulties. Fairly lightweight for a VR game, so even works on standalone VR headsets. Third party support for custom songs on some platforms means you'll never run out of content. Multiple difficulties and customization options means that you'll have more control over the experience. As long as your VR system keeps up, failures are your own and easily noticed, unlike Just Dance which is much more random.
Cons:
Requires a VR headset, and a good one for custom song support and proper tracking on higher difficulties. VR can be a no-go for some. Some platforms' VR is also too inaccurate for high difficulties. Some platforms are also limited to official songs, of which there aren't that many, and you pay per song(/pack) instead of a subscription like Just Dance (which also has 10 times the songs).
It also has a very peculiar fail system where you can fail a song and have it stopped if you fail too many boxes in a row, despite the fact that there's already a score system to tell you how well you did. You can disable this, but at the cost of your score. This probably (?, not sure how exactly) makes sense in a competitive sense, but for exercise it's an issue since the lower difficulties don't require much and the higher ones might make you fail. Even now that I do some songs on Expert I find myself having to enable "no fail" just to get a harder workout on Expert+/harder Expert songs, and when that cuts my score in half regardless of how well I do, some of the gamification aspect goes away. The score seems like it would serve as a good enough measure of your success without the fail option, and I think Just Dance proves that.
My routine
These days, in -15+C weather, I keeps walks to a minimum and generally go for Just Dance/Beat Saber to get the daily exercise. This limits what parts of the body are being worked on, so this is more for general activity than a method to become ripped. 250 days in, this rotation keeps me going with no signs of becoming too boring, which is more than I can say for having tried gym equipment for five minutes.
Hope this can help others find a way to "game" the system.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/kuacl7/some_thoughts_on_fitness_gaming_after_reaching_a/
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