15 Minutes of Fame: World of Warcraft player "levels down" with game-related diet
by Lisa Poisso 
Mar 24th 2011 at 5:00PM
So how much weight have you lost since you started playing World of Warcraft? Wait, what's that? You've gained 10 pounds since the expansion launched and your guild started raiding again? Oh, good people of Azeroth ... It doesn't have to be that way. You can get lean and mean with WoW -- you simply start by Leveling Down.
Leveling Down is a new blog and weight loss scheme put together by player Moriarity of Archimonde (US-A) after he found himself starting at too many pounds and not enough motivation. "One day, while playing WoW, I stumbled upon the idea that I could turn my own weight loss into a game, much like WoW," he explains. "Every day that I ate what I was supposed to and did the proper amount of exercise, I would gain a level. And every day, I would do a blog post that would feature an area of the game where a character of my current level would be."
So is the plan working? We'd say so -- as of the beginning of this week, Moriarity's broken the level 40 barrier and appears unstoppable.
Main character I have several 85s on the Alliance side, but the one that I've been using the most during this process is Moriarity, a worgen warrior who is 75 as of today.Guild I created the guild Jerk Store with a number of my friends who aren't playing right now, but the guild still houses all of my 85s. I am leveling Moriarity as a member of the guild Citîzen.
Realm Archimonde (US-A)
15 Minutes of Fame: So you're "leveling down" to take the weight off with WoW ... How exactly does the plan work?
Moriarity: The way that the blog works is if I eat as I am supposed to and do my exercise regimen for a day, I gain a level. If I eat something I shouldn't or skip exercise, I stay at the same level, and if I slack off on exercise and eat something I shouldn't, I lose a level. Every day, I write a post describing a world zone, an instance, or in some cases, a perk that a character of that level would be experiencing.
Do you actually play a dedicated character for this project, to keep up with your weight progress? Or do you use existing characters to adventure in the zones you feature in your posts, or do you do simply write from what you know?
I'm glad you asked this question, since my friends who follow the blog all seem to share the same confusion. I toyed with the idea of leveling a character along with my blog so that the content was strictly limited to that character only, but I finally decided to just write from what I knew for this first go-around so that the blog would provide a larger view of the world. Leveling a character takes significantly less time now than it did before, especially with heirlooms and guild perks, so it's possible to skip entire zones, and I wanted to avoid that as much as possible.
If the blog hits level 85 and I choose to continue, which I believe that I will, I'm definitely going to chronicle the adventures of one character only. I'd bet on it being a goblin, since they and the Horde have received very little attention from Leveling Down so far.
It sounds as if you've been struggling with your weight for some years now. Can you tell us a little about your ups and downs?
I lost about 60 pounds in the summer of 2005 and put it back on over the course of about four years. Throughout that time, I have attempted countless times to get back on track, but my biggest problem has always been recovering from a bad day. I allow myself to indulge in something that I shouldn't on a holiday, for example, and that opens the floodgates for two weeks of bad eating and skipping exercise. I always found myself in the mindset of "Well, this week is completely shot, I'll just go crazy until next Monday and start over."
With Leveling Down, I am able to see that a bad day isn't the end of the world. So I lost a level one day? That's all right, I can instantly get it back the next day and get back on track. It really helps me to stop those slides in their tracks. Since I started writing, I've only had one day where I lost a level, and I made it right back the following day.
What have you found to be the most successful strategy to this point?
Avoiding long slumps, as I described above.
Why do you think what worked in the past wasn't getting your weight moving downward recently?
As I recall, the last time I lost a significant amount of weight, I had a great deal of motivation, since I was returning for my senior year of college, and I wanted it to be my best yet. I was also 22 years old, so I didn't have some of the aches and pains back then as opposed to today, now that I am 28. Also, it was summer last time, and I had a newspaper reporting job where I worked evenings, so I was able to schedule my exercise daily. In recent years, between being married and having a full-time job, sometimes exercise just wasn't on the schedule, and I wouldn't go out of my way to get it done.
Getting into a routine early in the blogging process was absolutely key, since there is very little to write about in the early levels! I found myself constantly scraping the bottom of the barrel for content, so every day I was telling myself, "You need to keep this up and get into more interesting territories!"
For me, making sure that I do my exercise daily will prevent me from eating junk. If I've done my exercise, I can always tell myself, "Eat something healthy; you don't want to negate all of that work you did." So in the early going, I made myself get on the bike every day. If I knew that my wife and I had something to do after work, I got up early and rode. If I was too tired in the morning, I was riding as soon as I got home from work. Eating well followed all of that.
Tell us about your exercise bike setup.
I have a stationary bike set up in our guest room, with an adjacent dresser that is the perfect height to rest a laptop on so that I can play while I bike. The time really flies, especially if I'm doing a dungeon. I'll send a picture along of my setup, and sharp-eyed viewers will notice that I share an exercise bike with The Conchords from Flight of the Conchords!
What's your daily exercise routine?
Before I bike, I stretch for 5 minutes and do one set of calisthenics, which includes three sets of 15 push-ups, one set of 30 crunches, one set of 30 toe touches, and one set of 15 throwdowns, all separated by sets of 25 jumping jacks. I then bike for 60 minutes and finish the routine with another set of the calisthenics and cooldown stretching.
What about dietary changes -- what's different there?
I adhere to the first phase of the South Beach Diet, which eliminates most complex carbohydrates, including potatoes, starches, sugary vegetables like carrots and beets, and sugar.
Does cooking and exercising cut into time you'd previously spent playing WoW?
Not really. I'm fairly casual at this point anyway, so I only play for about an hour a day, usually while I'm biking. The best thing that I take from the game are the visuals and lore -- and the idea of leveling myself for motivation.
How long have you been playing WoW, and how would you characterize your playstyle?
I've been playing since the fall of 2006 and am fairly casual.
Are any of your real-life or in-game friends participating along with you?
No, but a Leveling Down guild would be fantastic. I always find that it's easier to stay motivated if you have partners, and that seems like it would be a great way to do it. It would be like an online support group. The best part of the system that I have in place is that it doesn't call for any one exercise routine or diet ... It just makes sure that a person who wants to lose weight is adhering to those two important criteria: Eat what you're supposed to, and work out when you should, and you will see results.
How much weight do you hope to lose on this plan?
I'd ideally like to reach 200 pounds. I'm already down to 243 from a high of 270 in about two months of writing.
Wow -- great work! Keep it up, Moriarity, and best wishes for continued de-leveling.
Keep up with the ever-shrinking Moriarity as he levels downward at his blog, Leveling Down.
"I never thought of playing WoW like that!" -- and neither did we, until we talked with these players, from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Aron "Nog" Eisenberg to an Olympic medalist and a quadriplegic raider. Know someone else we should feature? Email lisa@wowinsider.com.
Filed under: Interviews, 15 Minutes of Fame
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jack Spicer Mar 24th 2011 5:16PM
Not to sound like a terrible spoilsport, but the real problem with losing weight is keeping it off after that initial period of high motivation wear off.
Saeadame Mar 24th 2011 5:58PM
True, but the difference between this and using the "fast weight loss" methods is that it's more like you're building a routine, I think. The important thing is to not stop your habits once you've reached your goal weight, which can obviously be a temptation.
Tiarnach Mar 24th 2011 6:04PM
That's because most go about it the wrong way. They go on a diet, fully anticipating a return to the old eating habits that made them fat in the first place. This cycle of diet-gain-diet-gain is actually disastrous to your metabolism, since you'll actually burn off metabolically-active muscle mass faster than fat if all you're doing is cutting your caloric intake to 1500 and continuing to sit around.
Now, a permanent lifestyle change - like switching to Atkins or South Beach that you really can do for life, or permanently cutting out foods that are just flat horrible, or permanently reducing the amount of empty calories from things like liquor and regular soft drinks are lifestyle changes necessary to keeping the weight off.
Same goes with exercise. You can't tell yourself you'll work out every day until something happens or an arbitrary goal is reached, and then stop. You need to set a realistic goal, and once you hit it your goal needs to change - like make the new goal to keep weight off, or get a six pack, or add muscle mass. Point being you stay in the gym, you keep your strength and lean mass gains, your metabolism stays high and it's easier to keep eating healthy rather than the all-too-easy slide back to McDonalds and Doritos and Coke. You leave the gym, you lose the activity level, which means your metabolism slows, and things like potato chips go from occasional treat to insulin-spiking binge starters.
TL;DR - Don't go on a diet to lose weight. Make permanent lifestyle changes to be permanently happier, healthier and longer lived! :-)
Matt W. Mar 24th 2011 8:02PM
That's why I'm writing the blog, Jack. (This is Moriarity.)
I wanted to get myself into good habits and hold myself accountable, and the best way to do that was to make sure that I stuck with it day after day, and that if I had a bad day, I would get right back on the horse. The last phase of South Beach, the maintenance stage, is very much a lifestyle rather than a diet. Once I reach my goal, I know that I will be happy, healthier, and have a much wider variety of foods to eat.
wutsconflag Mar 24th 2011 5:26PM
Over the past year, I've taken off over 60lbs. I plan on keeping it off, and so far it's been relatively easy. I don't "crave" fast food anymore (actually, most of it kind of makes me sick) and I actually like a lot of vegetables that I didn't really like before.
Using WoW to help yourself do that is kind of ingenious, actually.
anne Mar 24th 2011 6:03PM
I've always thought that someone should invent an input device for WoW that was akin to either a stationary bike or treadmill. When our toons were running or riding or flying, we would propel them with RL exercise--with the bike or the treadmill--instead of with a mouse or keyboard. I'd be ready for the Olympics if they did that.
AutumnBringer Mar 24th 2011 9:51PM
If I'm not mistaken, some guys did that by using a treadmill as input for running and tried running brand new night elves from the spawning spot to Darnassus and were completely worn out.
How funny would it be if all the leet WoW players had to be in great physical shape to do it :P
I'd be for trying that, sure would help get activity in after a day sitting around at the office.
Drakkenfyre Mar 24th 2011 11:29PM
They did.
And the test showed that running around would kill you. A walk from Darnassus to SW left them out of breath. To actually run around like we do, it would give you a heart attack. And they were just walking, not running constantly. And if I remember correctly, these were not unfit guys. You would need to be extremely physically fit to run constantly like we do.
Bapo Mar 24th 2011 11:25PM
@Autumn
I remember seeing that on the Mana Potion energy drink website, I also remember seeing them try to do some in game things while running on a treadmill, like pulling out a sword. Yeah... it didn't work out too well.
Nick Mar 24th 2011 6:12PM
I really do sympathise with people who find maintaining a healthy lifestyle difficult. I was lucky enough to get involved in competitive basketball at a young age and have kept at it for the past 15 years or so (currently 26).
I have seen many of my friends gain obscene amounts of weight, and I know of at least 2 previously healthy guys that, unless changes are made, will struggle to see their 55th birthday. One was a very keen football (soccer) player through highschool, the other was an international rugby player.
My 2 tips for getting healthy are pretty simple:
Find a sport or exercise you enjoy, there is something out there for everyone.
Learn to cook for yourself, it's fun and you know exactly what you are putting in to your body.
Kylenne Mar 24th 2011 8:34PM
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle and being fat are not mutually exclusive concepts. Similarly, thinness is not automatically indicative of being healthy.
Saeadame Mar 24th 2011 10:02PM
@Kylenne - Very much agreed. I was eating about the same amount of food when I was 16 as when I was 10 (not because I was dieting or anything, I just wasn't hungry for more food), and as a result I was underweight for my height/body type to the point that I was having... kind of like hypoglycemia, but less because I actually had the condition and more because I was underweight (fainting is not fun, btw). Anyway, I had to consciously force myself to eat more than I was hungry for, but now I'm right where I should be. Forcing yourself to have healthy eating habits is not just for people that are overweight, absolutely.
Frase32 Mar 25th 2011 8:10AM
@kylenne, except in very extreme circumstance being over weight is always in healthy. I knew there would not be many comments on this topic as gamers and discussing fat generally don't mix well.
There is a very simple method to lose weight or to prevent becoming over weight. Burn more calories than you take in. It's is not always easy, but no one can deny its simplicity.
For most people, not all people. being fat is a choice. If someone is fat and they don't think it is a choice, chances are they are just enabling themselves to remain fat.
Let's not give people more excuses by saying completely irrelevant things like "being fat doesn't mean you are unhealthy." Simply put, in an overwhelming majority of cazes, yes it does make you unhealthy.
Sirhoffy Mar 24th 2011 8:17PM
I recently went to Afghanistan as a contractor and lost almost 60 lbs. Since being back home though I put back on about 20. I guess the hardest thing is.....FOOD IS SO GOOD .. I just started getting back into the Exercise routine but, its a lot harder here than there. Main reason being it was really easy to avoid eating a lot of food, and sitting around doing nothing. It really is all about habits, diet and exercise go along way.
Kylenne Mar 24th 2011 8:40PM
With all much love and respect to Moriarity and his blog (which really is an awesome concept), I'm leaving this link in the interest of equal time. For people who've struggled with diets especially, it's some interesting food for thought, if you'll forgive the pun.
http://kateharding.net/2007/11/27/the-fantasy-of-being-thin/
Accipeter Mar 25th 2011 10:46AM
Here is something I've honestly never understood about the thinking behind the whole "fat acceptance" movement: if diet and lifestyle changes truly don't succeed at getting and keeping people at a healthy weight, then why is it that when you look at photos of typical Americans from the 1970s and 80s (let alone the 50s and 60s), people appear noticeably thinner, in general, than they do today? If it's all "in the genes," as fat acceptance thinking goes, then does that suggest that somehow, the human gene pool (only in industrialized countries, of course) suddenly made a drastic change within only one or two generations?
I'm old enough to have grown up in the 70s and 80s. I don't remember there being all that many fat kids around. Usually there we just had that one (or maybe two at the most) in any given class, who, unfortunately, would get teased mercilessly. Today, I look at kids in school and am shocked to see that at least half of them are significantly overweight, with quite a few who are downright obese. Kids didn't look like that 20-30 years ago. That one "fat kid" from my 5th grade class 30 years ago wouldn't even look out of the ordinary today.
Do people honestly believe that our genes have suddenly changed that radically, that over half of the U.S. population (for example) is genetically doomed to be overweight (when they clearly were not just a generation ago)? I am boggled that people would think that the industrialized world's obesity problem is due to anything other than changes in lifestyle and diet over the past few decades. And therefore, it follows logically, the majority of weight problems must be caused by the environment, whether it be poor eating habits, sedentary lifestyle, or something else.
earthexile Mar 24th 2011 8:49PM
I read this and decided on the spot to do the same thing. Thank you WoW Insider for bringing this to my attention, I've been contemplating trying something new and this is just what the doctor would have ordered if I'd asked. And if the doctor played WoW. And had a sense of humor.
My weight-loss-quest blog will be called Orking It Off. Wish me luck!
Matt W. Mar 24th 2011 9:08PM
This is awesome! Best of luck with you, and if you want to join me in-game to do this, send me a tell! Be sure to post a comment on Leveling Down so I can start following you!
Nick Mar 24th 2011 8:55PM
I certainly that thinness is unhealthy, I hope I didn't imply otherwise. I have to say though, being fat IS indicative of an excessive energy intake, and that IS unhealthy.
xamiens.girl Mar 25th 2011 1:50AM
I've also lost weight since I've started playing WoW, more so the past year or so. Oddly, it really started when I started actually drinking soda. Weird, right?
Mainly drink more water and eat less, I was eating about twice as much as I really needed before. I don't excersize much, I have really bad asthma so mainly I just worry about intake.
From 197 to 160 ^_^ I'm 5'1"