The WoW Diet: 41 lbs in 90 days
by James Ransom-Wiley 
{ Oct 31st 2006 at 3:25PM }
Greg shed 41 lbs. from a 274-pound frame in just 3 months -- and did it playing World of Warcraft. Word?Dubbed "Warbiking," Greg strapped a keyboard onto the display of his stationary bike (Schwinn 213 Recumbent) and used a side table to operate his mouse. He hung a 46-inch Samsung LCD to hold his attention, outputting WoW from his XPS Gen 2 laptop. Truth be told, Warbiking was only part of the regimen, which included weightlifting, a low calorie diet, and even fasting; but WoW was the cornerstone for the weight loss, as Greg attests:
"I really think the Warbiking had a LOT to do with how well I did, and how much I lost. I have done over *100* hours of cardio in three months, which is wild. There is NO WAY I could have done that without Warcraft ... it's [sic] ability to suck me in and make me ignore what I'm physically doing is amazing, and made this possible."
Yo Blizzard, you payin' attention? This guy could totally be the next 'Jared.'
[Thanks, Doc]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Daphodils @ Oct 31st 2006 3:40PM
Imagine partying with this guy when he passes out from dehydration
"hey what happened to him?"
"i think hes afk..."
djSyndrome @ Oct 31st 2006 3:35PM
100 hours of cardio in three months is barely an hour a day. I get that just chasing the kids around the house.
> @ Oct 31st 2006 3:47PM
Good for him. Now, all the other fatties need to get the same setup.
Judd @ Oct 31st 2006 3:39PM
Sure he lost some of his weight when playing Warcraft, but he wouldn't have been able to do most of it if he didn't have AIDS.
spencer @ Oct 31st 2006 3:44PM
He should have rigged the bike to power his computer. He'd be pedalin' a lot harder I reckon.
chris @ Oct 31st 2006 3:49PM
I tried to distract myself with other activities while biking before, and I always walked away with less miles on the bike than if I'm just listening to music or watching TV. When reading or playing DS, I'd often slow down or pedal intermittently if I really wrapped myself up in it.
JCA @ Oct 31st 2006 3:47PM
You may be right djSyndrome but do you constantly chase these kids for 60 minutes straight? Is your heart rate constantly above 120bpm for those 60 minutes? Or do you chase for 20 hard minutes and then plop those kids down in front of the TV for the next 40?
Why are you chasing these so called "kids" for an hour or more anyway? Either you don't chase hard enough which means you have more than 41lbs to lose or you're a child molester and they're just trying to escape.
Pervert.
djSyndrome @ Oct 31st 2006 3:54PM
@JCA:
It was a tongue-in-cheek response to the fact that 100 hours of cardio over three months isn't a 'huge' amount.
As far as my parenting skills go, I'm sorry your mommy and daddy left you in front of the NES when they weren't busy dropping you on your (now deformed) skull, but please don't take it out on those of us that choose to actively parent our children :)
Tabitha @ Oct 31st 2006 4:31PM
All obese gamers should learn a lesson from this guy. You CAN work out and game at the same time. What a genius.
zero2dash @ Oct 31st 2006 3:55PM
I don't know what's worse.
The fact that he was that fat in the first place (probably from playing too much WoW)
or
The fact that he's too lazy to get some real exercise out in the real world and instead had to rig up a stationary bike with a computer.
At least Jared's fat @$$ went out and did real exercise inbetween shoving sandwiches down his gullet.
Angelo @ Oct 31st 2006 3:58PM
Good for him. If I had a stationary bike I would probably do this. Two birds with one stone.
And for the majority commenting, can't we keep it on topic FFS?
Dignan17 @ Oct 31st 2006 4:08PM
It must be hard to find open wifi access points when you're warbiking on a stationary bike.
crono141 @ Oct 31st 2006 4:10PM
I think the first comment on ALL these threads needs to be "DON'T FEED THE TROLLS"
footlong! @ Oct 31st 2006 4:14PM
nice use of '[sic]' joystiq. im impressed
dafnap @ Oct 31st 2006 4:17PM
It would have been awesome if you could tie the running in the game to the output of the bike. Imagine travelling around Azeroth by bike. To run, you'd have to peddle faster, to walk, you'd just slow down and grab a breather.
I know there were a few gyms, way back when, that had all their bikes tied to the same digital world, and you could race other gym members up/down hills, under the ocean...etc.
Pretty cool idea if someone could jerry-rig a similar set-up for WoW.
Skrilla @ Oct 31st 2006 4:30PM
When I play my 360 I hop on my elliptical, what's that called war____?
superbagman @ Oct 31st 2006 4:43PM
I started on a diet this summer, and I was very wary of taking my DS to the gym with me, for two reasons. 1. fear of going slower on the bike because of focusing on the game too much and 2. I didn't want to harm my precious Lite in anyway. I eventually broke down and brought my GBA SP with Final Fantasy 4, if I just level up on the moon for the entire time I found that I can actually bike harder because I'm not focusing on my heart rate or the time left on the bike.
mandarin @ Oct 31st 2006 4:49PM
What exactly makes it 'War' biking? You could've just done the same thing watching TV or Porn.
Jeffler @ Oct 31st 2006 5:08PM
Mandarin, its "war" biking because he's playing "war"craft, duh.
canebi @ Oct 31st 2006 4:59PM
Woh!!! He lost weight exercising! WTF! HOW?
People using an exercise bike and playing games or watching TV? Oh my god, newest invention EVER.
how in the hell is this news?
This just in, I was playing God of War while on a treadmill and lost weight, I call it Godmilling!
Textbook @ Oct 31st 2006 4:59PM
@22 then it'd be TVbiking or Pornbiking
'War' for World of Warcraft...
airiox @ Oct 31st 2006 5:02PM
Congrats to the trolls for totally failing at life... You know who you are ;)
yuppy @ Oct 31st 2006 5:17PM
good idea. i lost 30 lbs last year running listening to music, same concept tho.
cept i looked actually normal in the gym and i only wieght 205, now 175.
Orangecoke @ Oct 31st 2006 7:06PM
Always so much hate. Anyway, I think it's a great idea and have to give him props. I'm tempted to try this.
ScottishMartialArts @ Oct 31st 2006 9:12PM
I'm calling BS on this.
A pound of fat is 3500 stored calories. In order to lose a pound you therefore have to create a calorie deficit of 3500 calories. So in order to lose a pound a week you need a 500 calorie deficit a day. In order to lose 41lbs over 90 days that means you'd need a DAILY calorie deficit of roughly 1600 calories. Unless this guy is still in his teens, which sounds unlikely, 1600 calories is about what his body needs to support a completely sedentary lifestyle. Therefore without adding any exercise, he would need to eat absolutely nothing for three months to lose 41lbs of fat.
Given that he did his biking while playing a game he can't have been biking too vigorously or his body movement would interfere with his ability to play. Additionally, 100+ hours of biking over three months is roughly 1 hour a day. Biking at a moderate intensity for an hour only burns approximately 500 calories a day. Additonally, weight lifting is only likely to burn about 250 calories per hour. So assuming he biked an hour and lifted an hour every day (which is a recipe for overtraining, so I suspect the actualy volume of exercise was less), he would theoretically only be able to eat 750 calories a day for three months. Realistically it would have to be even less to allow for rest days from training, because an out of shape, sedentary body would simply not be able to handle a that high a volume of training without a lengthy trainup period.
Unless you are an extremely heavy set man, getting to 271lbs takes years of unhealthy eating and exercise habits. As we all know habits are really hard to break once they are ingrained. Therefore, if we are to believe this story we have to believe that, through the magic of Warcraft, an unhealthy, out of shape gamer was able to start exercising for two hours every day for three months subsisting off of two very moderately sized meals a day. I find that hard to accept.
Walt @ Oct 31st 2006 9:04PM
Certain games do predispose to good workout time. For example, KOTOR, KOTOR 2, and Jade Empire are great treadmill games. Crank the angle up to 12 degrees, crank speed to about 4 mph, and the time just flies by. Twitchy games don't work well, but I found the above games to be a blast.
One other "distraction" I have used is audiobooks on the iPod. It almost helps if its something you've already read in the past, so you don't have to focus exclusively on the audio.
I kind of look forward to getting on my "cut" cycle so I can get back into my audiobooks.
Jason @ Nov 1st 2006 12:43AM
"The fact that he's too lazy to get some real exercise out in the real world and instead had to rig up a stationary bike with a computer."
Actually, he lifted weights in the gym, as well. Read. If he's working out, that's not laziness; driving to the gym is the easy part. I can identify with his dilemma in that cardio is boring! Weights are quick, knock-em down reps, but I can't do cardio unless it's in the form of a sport (or if a coach is screaming at me). Some people just don't like to run for the sake of running. I say congrats to this guy for taking initiative and creatively finding a way to shape up.
Carter @ Nov 1st 2006 2:51AM
ScottishMartialArts -
If you would take the time to read his site, you would see he supplements his hour+ daily bike regimen with a regular lifting routine as well as regular days of fasting in which to create the deficit you mention.
This isnt some guy trying to brag about an impossible weight loss, it's someone with the fitness know-how losing an extreme amount of weight through a regimented program.
aisar apis @ Nov 1st 2006 10:39AM
hehehe...this is the best solution for addicted wow gamers....im one of the 4million players of wow....and this is just...WOW....this guy really stick a keyboard and stuff to play wow.....hahahaha...funny....but...two thumbs up for you dude....should bring the laptop while in toilet as well... :)
Brian Harris @ Nov 1st 2006 6:46PM
soon to be murder defense...
it's [sic] ability to suck me in and make me ignore what I'm physically doing...
Korova @ Nov 1st 2006 11:29PM
Folks in Korea die from MMOs because they forget to get up to eat. What I dont understand is how he was able to do it for only one hour a day, when that stuff sucks you in for hours at a time.
And if he is so disciplined, how did he become such a fatso in the first place? Did he pick up a copy of 1991 LA Times three months ago and found out that being fat is just wrong.
Anyway, kudos, I guess. Whatever rocks his boat.
Conversion @ Nov 2nd 2006 12:42PM
@ScottishMartialArts & others
I swear, half of you dont read very well:
"Truth be told, Warbiking was only part of the regimen, which included weightlifting, a low calorie diet, and even fasting"
Way to waste your time figuring those details out.
Shannon @ Nov 4th 2006 6:08PM
Haters can crawl back into their holes.
He lost weight because in addition to the cycling he also ate a low calorie diet. His blog:
http://theweightlifter.blogspot.com/2006/10/low-cal-6011-min-warbiking-3-months-41.html
Ammon Lauritzen @ Nov 8th 2006 6:10PM
Wardriving/biking/walking/etc... is the act of hunting for and mapping out free wifi hotspots.
http://wiki.personaltelco.net/index.cgi/WarDriving
Hence Dignan17's comment :)
John W @ Nov 10th 2006 10:49PM
It's always interesting how words can mean more than one thing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warbiking
Attila @ Nov 29th 2006 3:31AM
So if you do the math 3500 calories = 1 pound of fat and he lost 41 pounds comes out to 143500 calories divided by 90 days = 1595 calories a day divided by 2 as he states on his blog 2 hours a day = 797 calories an hour.
Though the contradictory factor he states is he did 100 hours of workout in 3 months comes out to 1435 calories an hour which is a large amount per hour...
But if you want to talk about unhealthy weight loss, 2 years ago I went on a bike ride on my bmx with 38 tooth sprocket and a 12 tooth hub which is a 3.16:1 ratio for pedaling with 22" tires. With that said I rode a distance of 25 miles in 8 hours on a day when it was 98 degrees out! I had lost 20 pounds, very healthy for me, as I went from 135 pounds to 115! Calculated that comes out to 70000 total calories burned and 8750 calories burned an hour!
Interesting tidbit is that's 0.01017625 Kilowatt or just 10.17625 watts, 0.013646576 horsepower, and for torque it's: 36,634.5 newton meter/hour - 610.575 newton meter/minute - 10.176 25 newton meter/second, or if you don't like metric 27,020.221520899 foot pound-force/hour - 450.337025348 foot pound-force/minute - 7.505617089 foot pound-force/second.
As for the weight I lost, I gained it back in a week on a high calorie diet of military MRE's and plenty of taco bell.
Warbiker420 @ Jan 1st 2007 9:08AM
I think if someone actually peddled the same number of hours they played wow... they'd be friggin skinny borderline unhealthy... Avg WOW player plays 4-10hours a day! lets say you peddle at an avg rate for 300 calories an hour for 6 hours thats 1800 calories burned. an Intense workout of 800 calories an hour for 6 hours 4800 calories.. As some point here muscle starts to break down due to over-use. Maybe after the 4 hour mark? and runners high probably kicks in around the 2hour mark? So really for the avg player of World of Warcraft you could really peddle an avg slow speed over a period of 6 hours and have a calorie deficit of 1800 calories! thats pretty good. Now with a BMR of 1200-2500 (Women are generally around 1200-2000 men are around 2000-2500 BMR is how many calories are needed daily to stay alive and maintain the same weight) If your BMR is 2500 but your Metabolic rate is at 2000 you are gaining about a pound a week, so you need to create a deficite to loose weight.. Your thyroid determines your calorie requirements as well as your insulin levels, etc.. So a person with a disfunctional Thyroid probably due to excess soda consumption (sugar fluxuation) will burn less calories not to mention the consumed calories 2000 but actual calories burned would be 1500 so you need to burn 500 calories PLUS the amount of food consumed to loose weight.. 1500 (BMR due to low thyroid function) + 1800 calories (burned due to 6hrs of warbiking) = 3300 calories burned.. which means you can eat around 1000 calories to 1200 calories safely and still have a slow gradual weightloss. (that means no funyons, chips, ho-ho's ding-dongs, etc.. try eating low-fat veggies with low-fat cheese topping.. or eat 2 to 3 servings of fish for dinner..)