Avinash

Yep, I agree.. I feel like I've felt lesser cravings over the months of drastically cutting back.. I remember reading some information about tastebuds evolving around new foods habits aswell..? ?Hi wookieshark88, thanks Yes we can.. Its easier and more fun with support from you guys ?Thats interesting, I will add more saturated fats in my diet, thanks for the info! I'm trying to gain actually. I'm about 5'10" and weight maybe 58kg (127 lbs). Okay, I will keep the fruits coming.. Wow 6 bottles of water atleast? I didn't think I'd need that much. I used to piss out a lot every half hour or so. I thought I was drinking too much lol. Will get more eggs too. Thanks for the info . Btw do you study about nutrition at school or college?

Hi Ryan, Good to see you being open about gaming addiction despite having being an introvert. As Cam posted, baby steps is the key :). I too have and still know I'll continue to face moments when I'm going outside my comfort zone but with the support and gradual steps you will be able to make progress eventually. Respawn would be a good place to start. After your at a fairly comfortable to give other activities a try, give them a shot and you might be surprised. Your own progress will motivate you further to make more progress. The fact that you maintained so many game accounts makes me feel you enjoy variety. Try applying your OCD (or rather desire for perfectionism) while working on other hobbies. Since you had high level accounts in so many games I'm sure your very motivated and driven at getting your goals. Don't worry about relapsing, you will always learn something from it. At one point in my life I thought I'd never be able to give up smoking or drinking or many other habits of mine. . But with time, understanding and dedication anything is possible

?Thanks PureDiscipline (Nice name btw :D) I haven't put a serious thought into it yet but I considering it now :). Will keep you updated on that if I do.. ?Thanks Cam, it feels good to have posted my thoughts and decisions on the forum. I was shy about it initially but now after doing it I feel good about doing so and being a part of this forum in general I'm looking forward to the podcast aswell, cheers Hi Zane, ?I agree. I have been more consciously watching what I eat and I've added more green leafy vegetables and tried to get more carrots, tomatos, cabbage, and nuts, and whatever else I can get my hands on for nutrients. I had no idea the body craves sugar because of missing macronutrients, thanks for the tip :). I still crave sugar too but with practice of avoiding crystal sugar, I feel like the cravings have gotten lesser over the months. I used to be a sugar fiend lol on many days consuming the equivalent of more than 60+ teaspoons a day. A well balanced meal is what I will target. I intend to eat more oatmeal, and brown breads, nuts and grains. The reason I decided to quit eating crystal sugar was because I wanted to give my brain a break from the constant stimulation. I used to feel mood swings and emotional roller coasters from eating a ton of sugar everyday. Its a craving I don't expect to fade away as of now but with I can keep it to a minimum. I won't neglect fats. My understanding is that poly unsaturated fats are a good source of fats and saturated fats are the ones to cut back on. I've also been taking omega 3-6-9 fish oil capsules at least twice a day. Its great that you found cutting sugar easier lol, its a habit I found almost as challenging to give up as smoking lol. It used to be my smoking alternative for sometime and my vice pretty much my entire childhood. My sugar intake in the last few months has been a LOT lesser though. As of now my workout plans include working the upper body and lower body twice a week each (Using mostly body weight). I haven't signed up at a gym yet. Yep I agree, I think sugar is absolutely important for intense workouts. I decided to target sugar from fruit , nuts oats and other sources that don't include crystal sugar because I don't want to build on that habit again. What else do you recommend for quick energy? I have a ton of healthier activities in mind that I started to work on

Hello everyone, First of all I'd like to thank Cam for starting this forum and everyone else whose been part of it. I'm Avinash from Bangalore, India and I'm 27 years old. I started gaming since I was maybe 6 on the some of the old computer systems. When I first started to use the PC I was really fascinated by what this machine was and I wanted to learn more about what it was and I loved the strange looking parts, noises and lights that came from it. This started my passion for making sense of how computers work. It wasn't long before my interest in learning about the computer changed into mostly focusing on gaming. Like many gamers I was an introvert who used gaming as an outlet. I found many friends who shared my interest and it was great. We played console games, pc games, arcade machines and whatever we could get our hands on with whatever little money our parents gave us. During my teenage years I started to explore Counter strike and started visiting cafes and then found a lot of people who played as much or more then I did. It was great. The internet was just starting to spread back then and it was so amazing that I could sit in my room and play with someone across the world. I played cs 1.6 mostly, some console gaming and spend a lot of time outside cafes talking games day in and day out. As I got better my love for it grew. Professional gaming was something I was starting to consider. Long story short, I stopped playing cs 1.6 like many of my friends and we then moved on to online games like Ragnarok Online and World of Worldcraft. This was when my gaming life took a whole new turn. My grades and interest in school and college dropped dramatically. I was skipping classes spend all the money I had playing video games. I had started to drink and smoke cigarettes. Playing world of warcraft all night , getting drunk and smoking pack after pack felt good for a short period of time. Soon the smoking and drinking started to affect me to the point I wasn't able to sleep at night because I'd just be coughing up stuff all night, barely getting sleep, often thinking to myself - "Why am I doing this to myself? This has got to change", only to wake the next day and repeat the entire cycle. Eventually my respiratory system started to get affected so much that I woke up one day with an Orbital cellulitis and was hospitalized for a week. After going through surgery, I decided this was it, I was going to live healthier and make changes in my habits. I was successful at trying to live healthier for a short period of time before giving up and repeating the cycle all over. I was back to smoking upto 20 cigarettes or more a day, getting wasted and PvPing all night long on WoW. Almost everyday I kept telling myself that I should reconsider my habits. But it continued for a atleast 2 years. Eventually I stopped playing WoW because many of my friends quit. I then started to meet other friends , some of which were non gamers. We spent a lot of time getting drunk. I started to drink more and more - to a point when there was a whisky bottle at my desk almost all the time. Over the years, after attempting to quit smoking and drinking multiple times, I finally succeeded. Its been almost 3 years since I put a cigarette in my mouth or had a drink. Doing so made me realize - If I can put my mind to giving up alcohol and cigarettes (Something that a huge part of the world has a tough time with), what else could I accomplish with a determined will? I started to learn to play guitar and code HTML, CSS and PHP (Hoping to resume my passion for learning about computers). I worked on maybe 25 websites so far and then started to miss gaming because I had given up my vices and felt like revisiting that feeling. I thought since I don't drink or smoke cigarettes , gaming would be alright. I started playing a bit of cs 1.6 , cs:go and then moved on to League of Legends. I played it for a few months, many days in excess of 10+ hours. I was getting a bit of exercise on some days. But once again, there was a part of me that wasn't happy with the choices I was making. I ignored that part of me and continued. In the recent times, I had put more conscious effort into quitting it, many times uninstalling and reinstalling it again. I felt like the pattern from my teenage days was starting to begin. Last week I decided that it was starting to affect my health and motivation to do other activities that I had been procrastinating about for weeks. People had been waiting on me for weeks to get back to them about web projects because I got too caught up in playing LoL all night and day long. After going a few days without it, I realized how much more peaceful and calm not gaming was, and also how my whole life my brain had been wired to revolve around gaming. I have had my moments of "hmm maybe just a few games with a different attitude" , but that approach has always ended in a relapse so far. Yesterday , I reinstalled the game (after a few days of not playing), tried playing two games and then proceeded to uninstall it with a smile on my face, because I had seen the other side. Playing LoL taught me a lot about team work and working towards objectives. I used to play mostly a support character and I liked to be the guy that supported the team. But in the bigger picture I felt like I was still constantly engaging myself in a system that was rooted in conflict and battle. Not very spiritually satisfying to me. I realized that I could take my desire to help people with other activities. Today marks day 1 of gaming abstinence. I'm going to pay close attention to anything resembling withdrawal symptoms. I've decided to put more time into pursuing my interests of exploring astral projections, lucid dreaming and learning code. Getting more physical exercise is something I am really looking forward to. I hope doing so will accelerate my restoration of dopamine levels to more or less normal. Improving my breathing techniques was also something I have been focusing on since I was mouth breather for as long as I can remember, which happens to be one of the reasons that I used to play games and drink and smoke a lot (From my understanding and experience it seems like mouth breathing can result in lower oxygen levels leading to more anxiety and/or restlessness and that making me want to seek activities that I think might provide relief like gaming or drinking or smoking). I've also decided to get more veggies and fruits and avoid added sugar from my diet aswell. Thanks for reading and if I can help you out in some way, let me know