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Iron Giant
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Ok, this is totally On Topic! I'm not selling anything, certainly not some diet supplement or such.... I debated whether or not to bring this up and I'm throwing caution to the wind here and here it goes:
This thread is about playing CIV III and losing weight.
If you're a CIV III player who goes to the gym, or has a high metabolism, or only plays CIV III when your not out playing sports with your super model girlfriend all the time, you won't find this interesting, you are excused. 
The rest of us chubby computer game players will find this interesting (well, I did...)
I burned off 2000 calories last night playing CIV III for 2 hours. Heres how:
Put a treadmill in front of your computer.
My Treadmill and PC setup
Stay with me here! I'm not making this up. I"m only bringing this up because I wish I thought of it sooner.... It all makes sense now...
In the summer of 2003 I weighed 245 lbs. I was tired all the time. I ended up with heart trouble and was in and out of the hospital for different tests related to health problems. I was pre-diabetic. My doctor told me I would have diabetes in 5 years. He put me on heart medication. When I told him I didn't want to take it, he said "if you don't take it, next winter you will go outside to shovel snow and die right there of a heart attack".
Yikes.
I tried riding my bike (not enough nice days in Boston to really ride a bike) jogging on a bike path (bad knees and out of breath), dieting (just made me more tired).
So I thought, what if I could harness the power of my computer game addiction (which partly is responsible for the problem...) and make it work for me?
JANUARY 2004:
I got a medium price treadmill (nice big shocks on the bottom - good for knees) $650
I put together a spare PC I had kicking around (amd 1.1 - 512mb - 80 gig hdd) It didn't cost me, but it could be bought for just a few hundred.
I got an ATI all in wonder card ($50 32mb card. You don't need much to run CIV III and it does other things too, more later...)
I got a wireless finger mouse on Ebay. Search Ebay for wireless finger mouse
I put Civ III complete on the PC and started out slow. 3 mph, with no incline.
OH MY HEAD MY LEGS HURT BAD! You'd think I just ran a marathon... I stayed on the treadmill for an average of 1 hour a day at just 3 mph for the first month. Each month I increased the speed, incline or both.
Playing CIV III with just the mouse takes some patience since I was used to the keyboard short cuts, but once you get into it, its not bad. The longest I've ever played CIV III on the treadmill was 2.5 hours. Thats around 2500 calories now (I'm currently up to 4.5 mph at a 7.5% incline, its like climbing a hill for 2.5 hours!)
In 1 year:
I lost 30 lbs.
I went from a size 40 pants, to size 36.
I sleep like a baby.
I don't need so much coffee
I feel great. I'm a lot more alert during the day.
I LOVE running into people I haven't seen in a couple years. "WOW, did you lose a bunch of weight??"
Also, there is a lot more you can do on the treadmill too with the above setup:
I beat Halo (can't play Civ III ALL the time  )
I watch TV on the All In Wonder card (had the cable company run a line into the workout room),
The All In Wonder comes with software that allows you to record TV shows like TiVo.
I put all my .mp3's on the PC.
By far though, the one thing I can count on to pass the most time on the treadmill is Civ III. I played for 2 hours last night and the time passed like it was nothing....
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Iron Giant
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quote:
Originally posted by 1889
IG how about a few more pics. Is that keyboard mounted on the treadmill? |
I only have one other picture that came out:
Original setup without the custom made cabinet
The room is extremely small so its hard to get decent pictures. When the treadmill is down the back is only 1 inch from the wall and the monitor is up against the wall on the other side.
The keyboard fits nicely into a shelf that was made to hold a book for reading. I tried reading, but its really hard to do. Plus I have a fan on the floor facing me, a fan on the treadmill (you can see it in the picture) and a fan in the window behind me pulling air out of the room so its too windy for the book....
I have thought about using this idea to make money, but can't see how. I was thinking about spending more time really designing the custom cabinet with a metal arm to hold the keyboard better. I'm supposed to be moving this summer and when I do I also might build a thin metal pole "shell" around the treadmill. Then I'll put the keyboard on a metal bracket so its closer, and put 4 speakers around the treadmill for surround sound. I've watched many movies on the treadmill too, like Star Wars and LOTR.
There are some gyms that do something similar to this now where they give you a tv for your treadmill, but no xbox, no computer.
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Sabre2th
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I'm a runner/rower and I spend hours on the treadmill. I added a TV a while back and it's much easier to stay on there. Nice idea with the PC
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Sabre2th
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It may cause you to lose weight, but it is very unhealthy to do it that way. You're much better off eating healthy (this does not necessarily mean eating a lot less) and exercising.
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10-05-2005 17:59
), but having a more physical interface with the game would be welcome. Civ4 is being designed with MP integrated, so they need innovations for expansion packs. Maybe they should make one with a floor pad to emulate number pad movement and call it the Civ Civ Revolution expansion. 
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