Alright, here is my log for the last week. And hey, enjoy some memes along the way!
Monday: Supernatural
Got a full workout in. Knocked out some levels of the Beat Saber campaign that I had struggled with the day before. Progress? I also signed up for a game/service called Supernatural.
The game sets you on a platform elevated above picturesque mountains, volcanos, and plains. The premise is similar to Beat Saber. Only you slash at what look like black and white pots in a glass funnel that serves as the arrow telling you which way to slash. You also lunge to the left and right or squat to get your head and arms under triangles. The music to the intro are some standard alternative songs. Bright side by The Killers starts it off, so, good times.
Here is a nice little video of a person actually playing!
And here is the ridiculously produced trailer.
This game had a budget! Those are actual trainers. It is a subscription with the first month free. I said so long to an Apple Fitness+ subscription. Huge pro is just the outdoor feel after the clubbing highway of Beat Saber, and the coaching. We’ll see how this goes!
I also walked for half an hour during the lunch break, because the weather is freakishly nice in Texas right now. Fall is really starting to kick in.
Food log (targeting 36 Weight Watchers points):
Bagel with cream cheese: 13 points
Lunch meat and cheese sandwhich, and veggie chips: 14 points
Cup of white rice for dinner: 6 points
Half a cup of whole milk plain yogurt with chopped fruit as a snack: 3 points.
Total: right at my target of 36 points per day max.
Weight: 203.2 (Dang, that’s a bit much for me)
Meme of the day:
Day 2, Overdone
I did a bit a Beat Saber, this time tracking my heart rate. I wasn’t feeling the burn after about 20 minutes of Beat Saber, so I switched back to Supernatural and did a “Low” impact workout to 2000s alt rock for another 40 minutes. That wiped me out. The workouts I selected were meant to “graduate” me to medium impact, and I felt it. The elusive burn.
I also started investigating of ways to improve the blurriness. Searching around I found people who had returned the device because of the blur. I measured my pupil distance with an app. I was on the right setting for that (there are three settings for distance for the lenses, and I’m the middle one). I cleaned the lenses with a microfiber cloth. Nothing. One site suggested I check to see if I have an astigmatism? Guess that’s the next step before concluding, nope. The resolution is just bad for photorealistic environments, like Supernatural’s unfortunately. For other games that are generated, the environment looks pretty crisp. Hmmm.
Meanwhile, at the end of the day, I am insanely sore. Everywhere. First near the inner joint of the elbow, but then, I just felt the pain all over.
Food log:
McDonald’s breakfast: 18 points (ah the fight!)
Chicken and microwaved veggies lunch with some ranch dressing: 5 points
A dinner that included white rice: 6 points
A flour tortilla snack and a bowl of fruit with yogurt snack: 6 points
Total: 35 points. Nice
Weight: 204 (Oh come on. That’s the wrong direction. This is why they tell you not to weigh in every day.)
Meme of the day:
Day 3, Better
All Supernatural this time. I’ve also just accepted the blurriness.
Food log:
Homemade breakfast tacos: 13 points
Microwaved veggies with chicken breast salad and ranch: 5
Half a pork bratwurst link and roasted veggies: 5
Cup of plain whole yogurt and fruit, and a cup of honey nut corn Chex: 12
Total: 35 points. Still nice.
Weight: 202.2 (There we go)
Meme of the day:
Day 4, Honeymoon Fading
Aw dang. Tough to get up this morning. Ended up saving the workout for the lunch break. Another Supernatural workout. Really nice alternative song selection. Worked out on Mars! And Petra! Man, I like this game.
Food log:
Cereal and milk: 11
Sandwich: 10
Rice with dinner: 3
Whiskey and Cheetos: 7
Total: 31
Weight: 202.0 (yay!)
Meme of the day:
Day 5, Cheat Day!
Once again, working out during the lunch break. Did another Supernatural workout, this time to 80s pop ballads. Really tempted to belt it out, but I have not yet risen to that plane of unawareness. I’ll get there.
Another games I got to is called The Climb.
You grab the cliff in front of you, and at the very first moment it feels like you’re lifting the entire mountain, if you push your hands up, or push the mountain down if you move your hands down.
This is one of the games that I suspect could make folks nauseous because when the virtual world moves, you’re not moving except for your arms. Added to that, you can press a button to jump in the direction you’re looking and that is especially disorienting at first.
After a while, my mind sort of melded with the premise of the game, and it felt really cool to climb around. I was in a bay somewhere in Southeast Asia for the first level after the tutorial. Also fun, once I was at the very top, you stand around on a platform. And I noticed that my little platform at the top of this gigantic harbor rock was smaller than the rug I was playing on. So I stepped out into the nothingness and dang, that is a terrifying sensation.
Food log: It’s cheat day! I’ll never tell 😈
Weight: 203.2
Meme of the day:
Day 6, Saturday, Chores and Such
I was lucky enough to put in an hour long session of VR, with about 3/4 of it being a workout in Supernatural, and another being a brief bit of play of a game called Jurassic World: Aftermath.
This is the kind of game that is best played sitting down. There isn’t much point to standing and walking around because you mostly use the joysticks to meaningfully move around. That’s also the reason I worried this game might make me nauseous, but it does not.
Between this and The Climb, I might just be one of those folks who doesn’t get nauseous in VR. I’ve found again, that the mind gets itself in a flow with the game and the controls. It’s like playing an instrument. At some point you don’t need to think about what your individual fingers are doing on a guitar or keyboard. You just sort of imagine what music you want and your muscle memory takes care of the rest. Or it’s also like reading a nice book. You become engrossed. You’re transported. You’re staring at these scratches on a dead tree and find yourself hallucinating for hours. The mind is incredibly adaptive in this way. After a bit a playing around, maybe 15 to 20 minutes, your mind just goes with the flow.
Food log:
Frosted shredded wheat with milk: 12 points
Rotisserie chicken, dark meat: 6 points
Chicken, white meat, microwaved vegetables, and ranch dressing: 5
Whiskey and veggie chips: 13 points
Total - 36 points
Weight: 203.6
Day 7, End of the Beginning
Food log:
Kraft Mac and Cheese: 24 points
Half a cup of Risotto and vegetables: 8 points
Yogurt: 4 points
Total: 36 points
Weight: 203.6
Notes: We went out with a bang. Semi-intense round of Supernatural! All of my workouts have been in the low mode. Might be time to kick it up a notch next week for a day or two. Especially because, dang it, I gained weight! Well, we can see what happens Monday, but for the Sunday morning weigh in, I’m over the 203.2, by 0.4 pounds. Dang it! Surely that’s all muscle, right? Right?
Well, we’re in it for the long haul. The long haul of fitness. A stretch lasting several miles no doubt, on the highway of VR, going at the speed of low intensity workouts and some games. Anyway, I’ve gotten passed the soreness. Maybe next week we see a couple of clicks down? You’ll notice we were down in the 202 pounds there, so that’s promising.
Tune in next week to see whether I begin my descent!
Meme of the day: