The Juiced Gamer – Preamble
- January 22nd, 2012
- By Boomaga
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So I’ve finally decided it’s time. Time to change my life. Time to leave my fatass trappings behind and walk down the righteous path to losing weight and living healthier. For both selfish and righteous reasons, I need to get thinner. I don’t need to be one of those creepy, gaunt, lanky tall guys who looks like their entire body would fall apart like a tower of jenga blocks if they took a slapjack to the back of the knee, but I also don’t need to be rolling around like a taller Bam Bam Bigelow, God rest his soul. So this is it, my ultimatum. Starting next Monday, Jan 30, I will be beginning a 30 day juice fast cycle and trying to ride it out as the beginning of changing my gluttonous ways.
My friend Carrie was the one who planted the juice fast idea in my head. She had watched a documentary called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead where a man in his lower 40′s, who had had a history of health issues and a rare skin disorder, tours across America while ingesting nothing but juice from whole fruits and vegetables that he juiced himself. It was quite an inspiring journey, seeing how he had started out his adulthood thin, had added on the pounds over the years and finally got to the breaking point where he decided he needed to change his lifestyle and used 60 days of juice fasting as his kickstart. He managed to drop dozens of pounds, his skin condition eased up and he was able to move off of the plethora of medication he had been surviving off of for years.
What was even more impressive was when he found a man with the same rare skin disorder who was far worse off and about a hundred pounds even heavier during his travels. The 2nd man reached out to the documentarian and managed to change his life, overtime dropping from over 420 lbs to about 220, losing the majority of it during a 60 day juice fast. Now, I do realize as a student of the media that most documentaries are made to prove a point rather than objectively point out the facts, but Carrie herself is someone who has a very difficult time losing weight. She’s probably the healthiest person I know but has an extremely hard time shedding the pounds no matter how hard she tries. But this method worked for her, she fought her way through it, I can fight my way through it too. I’d recommend watching the documentary, seeing how two men’s lives have changed through… well… the power of juice.
Now, why specifically am I juice fasting? Well, I’m fat, but hardly ever sick and nowhere near dead. I have lost an impressive amount of weight previously. At my absolute worst point in Fall 2009, I weighed 367 lbs. This was the result of years of neglecting what I was eating, pouring tons of money into fast food and generally just not giving a shit about what I put in my mouth. I was healthy, I never get sick, my back or knees act up every now and then, but who’s doesn’t? I was encouraged to join a Biggest Loser competition at work, which is how I found my motivation to do something about it and make some money in the meantime. I managed to lose almost 40 lbs over 6 weeks, dropping to around 329 and I made some money for the most total weight lost (the real winner won by higher percentage). I walked every day (and quite honestly, fucking hated it), I cut down on my portions, I ate better when I went out, cut off all fast food, candy, soda and frivolous snacks. However, when it was all said and done, it was only a matter of time before I drifted back into my old ways. I had gone halfway to living better and in the end I ended up living as crappily as I did before. I’ve drifted around 330-335 for the past 2 years and haven’t made any strides to losing weight since. That’s why I’m juice fasting now, I keep telling myself I’m going to change things, but I never do. I’m desperate case of routine and Taco Bell, it’s going to call for desperate measures to get me to change.
So, I mentioned I had “selfish” reasons for losing this weight. Quite honestly, my number 1 goal right now is to make sure that I am small enough to fit on the “Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey” ride at Universal when I go to Orlando in May. I’m not a huge Harry Potter fan, but I hear that ride is AWESOME, and I hear they are very strict about being able to properly fit in the restraints. My older brother Andy is about an inch shorter than me, but he was able to fit on it. He’s also probably about 50 or more lbs lighter than me. So that’s part of why I want to lose weight quickly, but I don’t want to completely starve myself or fall into other dangerous habits. Juice fasting will still give me the nutrition I need, just not the extra stuff I don’t. Also, the added benefit of being in better shape will hopefully help me overcome my life-long self-confidence issues. But we’ll cross that road when we come to it.
Now, as far as referring to myself as the “juicing gamer”? One advantage I do have is that I don’t snack at home that much. Thanks to me spending plenty of time being distracted by video games, being engaged and focused on something, I’m usually not worrying about stuffing my face after dinnertime. However, being at work is a bad munchy time, having a few bucks in my pocket and wanting to stop for Wawa breakfast on the way into work is a bad habit. Pretty much any situation where I can get bored and have a few bucks in my pocket is a bad situation for me, as I tend to turn those bucks into candy or chips. By denying myself the possibility to take those snack breaks, hopefully I’ll be cutting out a big chunk of my problem. Then, when I get home at night, I can focus on my games, my website and my writing to keep my idle hands busy and out of the cookie jar. Final Fantasy XIII-2 comes out next week and is sure to fill my time with dozens of hours of distraction to keep my body focused on the game at hand, not on the ice cream in the freezer. Also, as I create my own juice concoctions, I’m hoping to come up with clever names for them after my favorite games (I’m already imagining up one called the “Golden Sun”).
Finally, I will admit that this week I’ll be going for one last hurrah of gluttony, one last chance to indulge in that which I am leaving behind. I’ve come up with the foodstuffs I will miss the most and will be waving good-bye to this week. I started tonight by getting some wings from Buffalo Quarters, I can’t make it all the way to the Pic-A-Lilli for the greatest wings on Earth and these are a good runner up. I will say goodbye to burgers at Bobby’s Burger Palace sometime this week. I may say goodbye to Pizza at Lorenzo’s in Philly when I go to see Lamb of God this Thursday. I would like to hit up Pat’s and say goodbye to Cheesesteaks. And this Saturday, I think a Famous Dave’s trip NEEDS to happen to say goodbye to delectable BBQ this weekend. This will be my final farewell to my life of gluttony, spending it with some of my closest food friends. Hopefully on the back-end of my 30 day juice journey we will meet again, and I will be able to balance you in moderation with a healthier lifestyle.
So, I will be blogging throughout my journey on my new site (when it launches), but I wanted this one chance to lay out my thoughts on why I’m doing, why I’m doing it and why will believe it will actually work for me. I have my friend Carrie to be my support and advisor, I will be buying a juicer next weekend with my paycheck and hitting up the oft-ignored produce aisle. I hope my blog will act as a reminder to myself of what I was willing to try to get better, and perhaps as a message to others to try it for themselves.
I know you’ve heard the phrase, “If I can do it, anyone can”. Well, I have no willpower, I love good food, it is my main vice, but if I can let it go to live better… anyone can.
So for the last week or so at my video game music Twitter feed,
I’ve been posting on the forums of
Finally, yes, every person has the right to do what they want with their own product. If you choose to trade your game into Gamestop or Amazon or sell your game on eBay, that is your choice. I can’t give a valid argument against people who trade in their games, because that would make me a massive hypocrite. I would love to be able to keep every game that I buy, but sometimes I need a crutch to help me pay for more new games. However, most of the games I trade in are games I’ve owned for several months or years and have probably lost most of their new sales potential. What I think is wrong is the practices of retailers pushing trade-ins and used sales so much harder than new sales on recent releases, to me it seems to do more harm to the industry that allows them to exist. The practice of trading in games isn’t inherently evil or harmful to the industry until it gets out of control and the game manufacturers see their sales suffer from too many copies of their titles being traded in, and that’s exactly what’s happening. I went to Gamestop the other day to pay off my reserved *NEW* copy of Super Mario 3D Land and saw at least 5 used copies each of Dead Island and Deus Ex: Human Revolution on the shelf, two games that are less than two months old and they are already saturating the used games market. That’s where the problem is, games that still have new sales potential that is being taken away thanks to the pushing of quick trade-ins and used sales.















