June 10th!
So since we were just getting started, I had to do some intro and tutorial stuff and I'll let all of you guys know how it works as well!
The first thing you do is select your gender, and tell them your age, height, and weight
Then they will give you a goal weight for the next 30 days. If you miss it, it's no biggy, they'll just take your weight at the end of the 30 days and give you a new goal! This game is very friendly and forgiving which works for some people. If you prefer a more aggressive style of motivation, this game is probably not for you
So my goal weight for 30 days is 214 lbs. Let's see how we can do!
The first thing they'll make you do is drink a big glass of water and walk 500 steps to check your pedometer. I don't have a pedometer with the game, so I use my iPod. That's okay, you can manually insert the number of steps you did as well. Sure, this lets you lie, but if you do that, you're only hurting yourself.
From there the game has four things to do.
Number 1: Steps
You will have a daily goal on steps. I messed up today because I thought it was 5000 steps, but they wanted 6000, making me short 500 (since I did the 500 when I started my profile). Oh well, it's the first day! You can probably do 6000 steps in about an hour or so.
Number 2: Challenges
They explain the challenges since I just started. Everyday you pick AT LEAST one challenge and up to 6 (although you can do more if you want, you just won't get stamps for it). There are four kinds of envelopes to choose from and four categories.
The four envelope types:
BLUE envelopes are activity challenges
GREEN envelopes are food and health challenges
WHITE are challenges related to coaching sessions (we will see that in a bit)
PINK are surprise challenges. You cannot see these before accepting
That brings us to the four types of challenges, as shown in the image above.
24 HOUR FOOD CHALLENGES are something related to food (or health) that you have 24 hours to complete
MINUTE FOOD CHALLENGES are something related to food (or health) that you do immediately
24 HOUR ACTIVITY CHALLENGES are something related to exercise that you have 24 hours to complete
MINUTE ACTIVITY CHALLENGES are something related to exercise that you do immediately
The first tutorial exercise challenge I received was:
Simple enough, I completed it and stamped it
Then I received a 24 hour food challenge:
So no adding salt to my food for 24 hours. Also simple enough considering I ate a lot of fatty foods today.
Once I completed both of these challenges, I got my first COACHING SESSION!
Coaching sessions are little questionnaires where the game gets to know you a bit better so it can customize challenges to your personal needs. That's what the white envelopes I was talking about are.
My first one was figuring out how much walking and running I do, as opposed to driving and such.
I got the middle result meaning I walk, but I could do more. They then gave me some tips and advice and asked what type of challenges related to this I would like to receive
Number 3: Exercise
After this comes the exercise portion. I've actually been jogging daily but didn't today because it was absurdly hot. So instead I did at least 30 minutes of walking. I actually probably did closer to an hour, but I'd rather underestimate than overestimate and they want you to do at least 30 minutes of exercise a day
Number 4: Food
After that came the food section. Here you report what you ate. This is the least accurate section of the game as they only have limited amounts of food to choose from. So what I do is check the calorie content of something and find the equivalent in their options. It still isn't the most accurate but it will do
I ate a lot today because I've actually been under-eating to the point of unhealthyness so I ate a bunch of my favourite foods today to encourage myself
I had:
A cup of banana yogurt
A banana
7 jalapeno poppers with berry sauce
Poutine (fries, cheese, gravy)
And part of a quesaddila
This led to 42 food points, which was 2100 calories. 1 food point is equal to about 50 calories.
The balance shown there is how many points I get from exercise vs how many I get from food. Ideally they should be close with the food being slightly less. That's right, this game won't give you your checkmark of completion if you don't eat enough as well as if you eat too much! So if you want that extra slice of pie, do more exercise! And if you do more exercise, you need more food as well. Hopefully healthier food than what I had here, which will usually be the case.
So for the first day I got 3/4 check marks which isn't too bad! Also, this game gives you points in the form of distance. So like, doing a challenge might give you 1 mile. Eventually it will show you you have enough points that you walked the grand canyon or something like that. I wanted to explain that so when you see distance traveled, it isn't how far I've walked, it's just points.
So this update was a bit longer than most will be because tutorial stuff, but I will report here again tomorrow!