Virtual reality: can you lose weight by playing video games?
February 2, 2017 Ashley 0 Comments
I’ve gotta admit, I was a little skeptical when I heard it…
Weight loss caused by… video games?
The first thing that comes to mind are Cartman and zombi-fied millenials. (Okay, and more than a handful of gamers my age, as well.) Blank faces staring at screens. The only muscle getting any gains from gaming are their thumbs. The only sustenance – a bag’ve chips or a few soda sips betwixt game play, while the storyline rolls – adding to the rolls of adipose shrouding their abdominals. How in the world could this possibly contribute to health, weight loss, or fitness on any level?
Well, it doesn’t.
’cause sofa surfing Soliders of Fortune aren’t the gamers we’re talking about here. Rather, what’s been under examination is the newer wave of virtual video gaming over the past several years. It’s the X-box’s golden child older brother. It’s the game that gets your tush off the cushions, and trying to smite foes in hand to hand combat – instead’ve the less fulfilling, distant sensation of a button commanding a digital avatar to do it for you. Where controllers create a wearisome distance that can get boring, virtual reality allows you to genuinely feel like it’s you doing the sparring or beating the bosses. However, in the case of the research currently being done, the monsters are often your bad habits themselves. What they do, is create an avatar-you that you get to physically be for a bit. It gives you a chance to make all the right choices and be your healthy alter-ego in a safe space, before coming back and stamping it into reality. Might sound really unlikely, but it totally works. Much like a weight loss holiday allows you to practice new habits in an unfamiliar setting that doesn’t tug at your tendency for recidivism, alternate landscapes allow for the same. The brain’s typically resistant to modifying habits. Thus, if you’ve already done it in your digital grocer or fridge, picking produce over pre-packaged junk food won’t seem such a painful change. Need some stats to back that up? Compared to the weight gain you get from your Playstation, non-stationary virtual reality game players lost on average up to 15 pounds in a recent study.
What could be easier? I mean, you get to escape reality, go on adventure, and return from fantasy land with a changed brain that’ll land you massive weight loss. In some cases, you even get to watch a hot version of yourself working out. (Which is always more motivating than seeing dumpy you running toward yourself in the gym mirror.) And, in others, you really are sparring with binary bosses – just like your favorite x-box fodder provides, minus the boring middle man of a gaming controller. That’s where the legit fun begins. Because the game may be fake, but the adrenaline distraction is real, the sweat is real, and so is the caloric burn – when all’s said and done.
It’s like visiting your favorite dreamworld, where the only toll you hafta pay is your own bad habits – and ultimately – fat. That’s a trifecta of win, if you think about it: win on the fun front, win on the fitness front, and win on the gaming front. (That’s – if you don’t suck at whichever one it is you’re playing.) So, if you’re fed up with traditional exercise methods, quit “getting real” about your goals, and instead delve into a fat blasting alternate reality.
(Doritos and cheesy poofs not included.)