Nerd Fitness and the Gamification of Exercise and Life

I recently stumbled across the NerdFitness, and it led me to a bit of an epiphany. I’ve been working on losing weight for a while now, and had done pretty well with it overall. However, as I got closer to my goal weight, I noticed my motivation was also waning. I was less excited about losing a few more pounds. Reading this site helped me realize that I want more than just being skinny, I want some definition and tone as well, and that doesn’t necessarily come from being extremely skinny.

And so, I decided to splurge and get the Rebel Strength Guide that he offered.

Quickly, I realized that my goals were about so much more than being skinny. I wanted to be able to do relatively simple things like chin-ups – something I’ve, rather ashamedly, never been able to do my whole life.

Fitocracy had already gotten me in the mindset to gamify exercise, but NerdFitness has really taken it to the next level. Every time you exercise it’s about being a little bit better than the last time. There are three different sections: Bodyweight, Dumbbell, and Barbell. Each of those sections have three levels and each level is set to be about six weeks. I started with the Bodyweight Level 1 exercises. The lower body moves were relatively easy for me, but the upper body were more challenging. But being able to push myself to the limit each day has been a lot of fun.

And I realized I liked this. Even more I like the results I’m seeing. I’m now wrapping up the first 6 weeks, and here’s what I’ve experienced during that course of time:

• I’ve been able to do the first chin-up of my life.
• I completed 100 pushups in one workout for the first time ever.
• I dropped one pant size
• I lost 3 pounds
• But I lost 4% body fat
• And my body fat is now in the “teens” for the first time
• My waist was noticeably smaller
• And my arms noticeably larger

I’ve weighed less at various points in my life, but I don’t think I’ve ever been this fit. I’ve never enjoyed working out so much, and this is an exciting discovery for me. I can’t wait to see what level 2 and the next 6 weeks bring! The idea of the gamification of life has been exciting and motivating.

More than being excited about fitness goals, one of the other things I’m taking away from this experience is how motivating it can be to have clearly definable goals that are broken up into manageable, understandable chunks. Knowing I wanted to be fit was one thing. And using Fitocracy did help with that motivation, but motivation could only take me so far when there was a vague goal.

That’s when I realized that so many of my goals in life are vague.

I have ideas about what I want to achieve, but they’re not defined, and they’re certainly not broken up into manageable steps. Perhaps some of the success is due to my personality type, but I believe that in general, having these clearly defined goals and steps makes it much easier to accomplish one’s goals. I’m excited to start working to apply this type of approach to other areas of my life.

Can you think of other ways that using this breakdown of goals and gamification of life in order to help motivate yourself and make your goals more achievable?