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Hello, Peter Here!


Peter

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Hello!

Honestly i thought id never visit a forum and make a post like this that i am currently writing.

My name is Peter and i am 31 years old.
I am what most people out there would call a "No-Lifer", meaning i only spend countless hours playing video games all day/night long.
It all started somewhere before the year 2000, i think it actually was when internet first were introduced when i got into playing online based video games (or few years after the release).
Ofcourse i played console based games, but i never had the kind of problems i have today with the games back then, would play an hour or two, then go outside to hang out with some friends, do some sports, or whatever activities we could decide upon doing.

I do apologize if my grammar/english isnt perfect, i am currently living in Sweden, but thats not an excuse i guess :)

Anyway a few years after internet came out here in Sweden, i picked up my very first online game called T4C, it is basically like any other mmorpg games out there, you leve up, fight monsters, join clans/guilds, do raids together, and so on...

After a few years of playing the game, everyone i knew started to leave the game, basically because they told me they had other things they needed to fix in their lives, and at that point i didnt think much of fixing things in my life, remembering back i must have been somewhere around 15 or 16 years old.

When the game (T4c) finally became boring enough because of everyone leaving, my eyes lightened up for a new mmorpg game that i had never heard of in my life, people in school talked about it, i saw other random people in internet cafés playing it, and one day i finally decided that i would become a subscriber myself, to the game: World of Warcraft

In the very early stages of my experience within wow, i could play anywhere btw 1-3 hours before it started getting to my head and i needed a break, jumping a few years into the future, around 2007-2008, i almost got kicked out of school because my grades were to bad, and i would never go to school, the actual times i would go to school, i kept thinking for myself during classes: Oh man, i cant wait until i get back home so that we can slay that big dragon, he has a few pieces i really need for my character.

There was a special day that i remember when i quit games totally for a period of time, because i didnt wanna fail my classes or school at all, because that would disappoint my parents big time, so i decided for the one remaining year to actually do my homework, join class, etc...

I finally avoided getting kicked out from school, took my graduation and had a blast...
The life however after graduation made my decisions in life to visit World of Warcraft once again.

After i had spent 7 or 8 months searching hundreds upon hundreds of jobs without even a single reply, it sort of (dragged me down?) and i started to feel depressed and thinking thoughts like: why did i even finish that last year and graduate when no one even wants to hire me... (I Graduated The Summer of 2008)

When i came back to wow after those thoughts about no one wanting me for a job, i have been playing world of warcraft ever since, until about seven days ago...
During all my time in world of warcraft, i have kept thinking over and over again that i needed to turn my life around, that i needed to find a job and do things outside the house but in the end i always avoided it because i would instead do some Questing with friends, run dungeons with guild mates, and so fourth...

However, seven days ago when i finally decided to leave video gaming forever, i think its because i want to change for real now, and i believe at this point that video games is giving me anxiety attacks/panic attacks...

The attacks would happen out of nowhere all of a sudden, i would feel dizzy, sick and in general just ill...
I decided for myself that i would do an experiment to find out if it is the video games that is causing this or not, so i took a couple of days "off" games so to say and everything went back to normal... When i finally decided upon playing video games again, it all came back once more, so i decided to completely erase all my video games and shorten my computer time...
Everything is back to normal now, but whenever i try to play something or watch someone play a game, i can feel the attacks lurking around the corner...

Believe it or not, but i am actually selling my computer (well its up for sale), and i am planning to buy a laptop in which i cant play video games at all on anymore, it will just be used for searching the internet, looking for jobs, etc...

Thinking over it all, ive been playing world of warcraft for over 12 years, some days i could play for aslong as 12-18 hours/daily (the last 3-4 months were like this 100%), i even had a youtube channel where i basically did insane/crazy videos, of me farming random stuff for a period of time, and i kept reading comments such as: heh, you are one crazy gamer, i could never do something like this...

Over the course of me playing this game, my weight and hygiene has changed drastically, i am now overweight and whenever people meet me they tell me that i need a shower or need to shave my beard, or other hygiene related issues, i always just say that i dont really care and that i am fine with it...

Now i am currently sitting here writing all of this down to see what other people will say about this.
The last few days i havent really been doing anything at all, just cooking some food, started reading a book that i got around seven years ago but never got around to actually start reading...

The area which im living in is currently packed with snow, so i dont really wanna go outside, but i do have some new hobbies i wanna try, such as camping, hiking, etc, but i will start on those once the snow starts to disappear...

I have started excersicing and eating healthier so that my body can transform into somewhat healthier, loosing weight that is, so that i can have more energy for outside activities...
I spoke with a friend about all of this and i have probably made a rash decision to fast, and i want your opinions on this if you will...

I told my friend that when my computer has finally been sold, i will take the money and move into his apartment at a completely different city, only bringing my clothes and money for rent.
Starting fresh that is, but i am thinking for myself right now if that is truly the best decision, as i said i am currently overweight and just quit games for good.

Do you think it would be better for me to focus on my health first, loosing some weight, getting into excersicing, etc so that i will have the energy and motivation to actually do productive things when i finally move to his apartment for a fresh start? Or should i just go straight away and take my very first risk in life...

The last time i remember of me actually working as a overweight, i were exhausted after the first day (knowing its my body size and no training at all)

I have probably written down my lifes history right here, and i can most likely write down more, but this is just a little bit of my gaming history and what it has done to me and now finally ready for changes...

Ps. I am following a new schedule tomorrow for myself, i have 2 hours marked as "outside activities" for every single day during the entire week, but i have no idea what to do, other then maybe walking around, ideas? :P

Anyways thanks for reading and have fun

 

 

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Hey Peter, happy to meet you.

2 hours ago, Peter said:

I spoke with a friend about all of this and i have probably made a rash decision to fast, and i want your opinions on this if you will...

I'm new to gamequitting aswell, so i don't have too much to give you, but diets i know. I have done multiple diets, and given them fair chance (imo), lost weight with them, lost interest again and gained the weight back. Rewind and repeat.

However this gives me a pretty good measure for comparing them between eachother. Im assuming when you say that you will "fast", that you are following the 5:2 diet, and not just fasting blindly?

To me the 5:2 diet is pretty decent at what it does, but in my case i ended up stalling pretty early. I think the mindset that the diet gives you is "lazy", eating w/e you want and still loose weight. I believe it to be a wrong way to think about your health, that you can still be unhealthy as long as you are unhealthy in the extreme opposite to balance it out.

If you are looking for the best diet out there, i would recommend Keto. It is a bit extreme and comes with an introdoctory period where you dont eat carbs, and your body is thrown in a loop.

However with that said, there's loads of resources out there, and great recipes. And when you are sitting at dinner eating steak + salad, you dont feel that compromised. Deffinitely the breakfast is the hardest to get right imo.

Anyways thats just my 2 cents. I burned out on fasting after a month or so, and keto kept me going for a lot longer, and with faster weightloss aswell.

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9 hours ago, JanG said:

Hey Peter, happy to meet you.

I'm new to gamequitting aswell, so i don't have too much to give you, but diets i know. I have done multiple diets, and given them fair chance (imo), lost weight with them, lost interest again and gained the weight back. Rewind and repeat.

However this gives me a pretty good measure for comparing them between eachother. Im assuming when you say that you will "fast", that you are following the 5:2 diet, and not just fasting blindly?

To me the 5:2 diet is pretty decent at what it does, but in my case i ended up stalling pretty early. I think the mindset that the diet gives you is "lazy", eating w/e you want and still loose weight. I believe it to be a wrong way to think about your health, that you can still be unhealthy as long as you are unhealthy in the extreme opposite to balance it out.

If you are looking for the best diet out there, i would recommend Keto. It is a bit extreme and comes with an introdoctory period where you dont eat carbs, and your body is thrown in a loop.

However with that said, there's loads of resources out there, and great recipes. And when you are sitting at dinner eating steak + salad, you dont feel that compromised. Deffinitely the breakfast is the hardest to get right imo.

Anyways thats just my 2 cents. I burned out on fasting after a month or so, and keto kept me going for a lot longer, and with faster weightloss aswell.

Hello, i probably should have made it a bit clearer, when i mentioned fast, i didnt mean doing a diet, 5:2 or anything like that, its simply:

"I spoke with a friend about all of this and i have probably made a rash decision to fast (maybe i should have typed to quick instead), and i want your opinions on this if you will... "

The text above is a follow up to the following text about completely starting fresh in a new city or just staying where i am at this very moment, get in shape, get more energy and then finally leave when i feel its ready, or just leave straight away and take a chance...

When it comes to the food and such, i am simply eating the same food everyone else around here is eating, which is deff more healthier, fruits, vegetables, switching out sodas etc for water and so on, all of this will surely make some form of a body change along with the outdoor activities i will try out in the coming weeks/months (as soon as the snow is gone)

Anyhow thanks for the tips

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Welcome and congratulations on taking the first step! It's not an easy journey, (I'm only on day 16) but I hope you find it worthwhile. You mentioned that you will wait for the snow to melt in order to do some outdoor hobbies, can you think of anything you might like to do indoors too? I think that will help a lot of the days when leaving the house either isn't an option, or is just too hard. I struggle to even motivate myself to leave the house somedays, but having lots to do indoors helps to keep my mind away from games. I also sold my playstation, which helped a lot. Now I enjoy learning guitar and German when I'm indoors, and journalling here of course. I also have an indoor workout routine so that I have less excuses not to do it. If staying at home is too much of a trigger for you, maybe you need to find indoor places to go that are out of the house (coffee shops etc?).

I have a lot of experience with diets, but this is from a background of disordered eating rather than just weight loss. The therapy I undertook for this taught me some important lessons. My advice would be to scap any sort of fad diet as they aren't sustainable long term. The best ways to make change are to focus on lasting changes, if you can implement small changes into your routine that are acheiveble, then this is the best way in my opinion. An example would be to start off eating a healthy breakfast each day (I love oatmeal in cold weather and museli in warm.) If breakfast isn't your thing maybe aim for a healthy lunch instead. If this is too hard to do every day at first then try doing it 3 days per week and go from there. By finding a healthy lifestyle that works for you, you're more likley to stick to it. From your reply above it seems you've got this covered though :) 

Quitting games and getting more active is a great step to take though, and possibly one of the most important decisions you'll make to turn your life around. Perhaps it is a quick/impulsive decision, but perhaps that's also what you need right now? 
Change is hard, and for me at least I find that too much change at once can be overwhelming. You've made a big change in quitting games, perhaps just give that some time to settle, get used to some new routines, and then think about what else you can introduce to make your life more fulfilled? 

And of course, good luck!!! 

Edited by Bugg
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I'm on day 25 of stopping gaming.  Before now, losing weight seemed many miles away.   Since I've stopped I've lost 10 lbs.(4.5 kg) by counting calories with myfitnesspal.com (free) + I got a step counter watch (such as fitbit) and I noticed that with my free time I consistently got about 4000 more steps per day.  Also I plan to join a gym, but I've lost this weight so far just walking and eating better. Also eating more vegetarian meals and portion control helped immensely.  I also have friends and family cheering me on on these websites.  

I started at 317.8 lbs (144 kg) and in 25 days got down to 307.2 lbs(139.3 kg) for a total of 10.5 lbs (4.5 kg).  For me this is a awesome change.  This is 49.8 BMI(Body mass index) to 48.1 BMI.  While all this is still considered extremely obese, I am headed in the right direction in just 25 days.   Before, while gaming,  I got up to 320 lbs and coasted there for months.  Before I felt like there was no hope for my weight.  Now I have hope that I can change.

I'm still taking time to venture out into the real world.  So far I've done things like observe a martial arts class, got to the library with my kids, and attempt to go on a vacation with my wife (we both got sick upper respiratory infections).  Even though we couldn't go on the trip, my wife appreciated that I was willing to travel and honestly want to spend time with her without a compulsion to go back to the computer to game.  I'm also going to visit with my extended family during Easter, when I had all but abandoned them out of shame that I had gained so much weight and had no job because of a mental disability.  Once again there is more hope.

Also I've joined a recovery group(Celebrate Recovery) that helps me with hurts, hang-ups, and habits.  I've got 3 big ones including eating too much, gaming too much, and porn addiction(I haven't looked at porn since the 1st as well).  This group has shown me love and supported me in spite of my problems.   They genuinely wanted to connect with me.   This is the first time in a long time that I felt like someone wanted so be in a real friendship with me, without a digital(online), transaction-based(you scratch my back, I scratch yours), or one-sided friendship (same-interest group).  Yes this is a Christ-centered group, and that suits me.

Also I feel like I'm giving back more in my life than just taking, if that makes sense.  I'm feeling in life what I do is more meaningful.

These are some of the things I've done in the past 25 days.  See what happens in your life when you stop gaming and start living away from the distraction.

 

 

     

 

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