I’m glad to see this come back as a focus for you; keep sharing progress and ideas in this thread!  I myself have been on a journey with weight loss since 2018, where I went from ~340 to 217.  When COVID hit, I went back up to 250, but am back down to 227 with a goal of 205.  I wouldn’t have been able to do it without threads or discussions like this, where I could pull ideas or do analysis of what others have done that I can and implement utilize with regard to my own routine/lifestyle.

Sorry to hear about the diagnosis of ankylosing spondilitis (and struggle with mental issues related to the challenges COVID presented); however, you’ve always been a determined and driven individual, so I’m sure you’ll be on top of your game if you aren’t already. 

I was getting all sentimental yesterday explaining to a friend (who doesn’t game beyond maybe some mobile games with a small group of folks) that I’ve been a part of a gaming community (FA), albeit loosely in the past few years, for over a decade (two, soon!) - and I realized that enough of us are in similar age brackets to where we’ll be experiencing age-related challenges as a cohort, with health, wellness, and self-care creeping more and more to the forefront.  This thread will be a great way to continue promoting some support and motivation.  I certainly wish I started my own obsessions with health and fitness much, much earlier!

If you come across any solid workouts, whether it be strength training, cutting/trimming, HIIT routines, other generally useful resources, share them!  I’ve been following a few channels on YouTube for workout ideas, for demonstrations of proper form and muscle engagement/isolation, and fasting/diet ideas/tips - do you have anything specific that you like to use for research/ideas?  With regard to your diet, do you do any specific macro tracking, or elimination of certain macros (e.g., carbs)?  Have you ever tried intermittent fasting?  Intermittent fasting will net you some great results if done with discipline.

It's been a long time since I've updated (about four years!). It feels like a lot has happened since then! I've been living with my girlfriend for several years now, so the days of just fixing a meal for myself to last all week is all but over. We also moved into a smaller apartment, so I had to get rid of my stationary bike that I had at home. Still, I've tried to keep and adapt my routine and continue keeping my weight down. My body really wants to live around 185-190, so anything higher that that usually is a sign that I need to slim back down.

Since I got rid of the stationary bike, I would go to the gym in our apartment complex and use the elliptical. This was fine until COVID hit and we didn't leave the apartment. I tried to supplement my exercise with VR - specifically Beat Saber - which was better than nothing. Still, I was having some health issues (turns out I have ankylosing spondylitis, an autoimmune disorder) and general mental issues from the stress of COVID times and gave up exercising for a while. When I finally got vaccinated and started working again last year, I noticed I didn't fit into any of my dress pants. Got the batteries replaced in the scale and realized I was back to 201 lbs! Yikes! So I started shredding again.

Currently I'm doing HIIT on the elliptical every other day at the gym. I think I'm on 30/60 but will be ramping up the difficulty soon. On off days I'm doing 30 minutes of Beat Saber at home (a specific playlist at 120% speed that is designed for exercise) and doing stretches. Right now I have less of an emphasis on muscle building and more on stretches and core building for pain management and strengthening my spine. Last year I was able to get to 190 lbs before I went out of town for a gig. I was able to maintain 190 lbs throughout the end of last year/beginning of this year when once again I avoided the gym due to Omicron. A few weeks ago my girlfriend had a similar "omg" moment of gaining COVID weight, so we've both been trying to shred again. The last month I've gone from 190 to 184 with the hopes of getting to 175 and then going from there!

As for diet, I still don't eat breakfast. Lunch consists of either fish fillets, a chicken patty, or a turkey burger with a 35 calorie tortilla and a half can of peas, corn, or green beans. Somewhat boring, but consistent. We've been doing meal deliveries for dinner since COVID and did Blue Apron for a long time. Now we do EveryPlate. It's pretty convenient since the calories and nutrition are listed for each meal. Each week I just choose the low calorie options (try to stay less than 750 calories). For a midnight snack I'll do greek yogurt mixed with PBFit (70 calorie peanut butter mix) or a small bowl of cereal. Sometimes I'll have a bourbon neat but try to keep it to one unless it's the weekend.

As for supplements, I'm currently doing Vitamin D, Fish Oil, and Turmeric. The turmeric is specific to my inflammation issues. I haven't added protein shakes back in yet, but I may if I start trying to balance weight loss with muscle toning/weight lifting.

Despite always having fluctuations in my weight, I'm pretty proud of the fact that I've kept the lifestyle changes and focus on health for nearly 10 years now. I feel that's the hardest part of diet and exercise - it's easier to do it for a few months for a temporary gain, but the truth is it's something you have to maintain for your whole life. I'm about to turn 38 and it's much more of an uphill battle now then when I was 28, but such is life! I'm glad I've kept this little diary of sorts, as I can go back and look at things I may have forgotten about! I started this as sharing stuff I was learning with others, but it turns out I was also sharing stuff I was learning with my future self!

New method of obtaining endgame gear:

World Boss: Drops a legendary material. Three are needed per legendary weapon you want to craft.

Invasions: Harder events. Apparently have a CHANCE of dropping the new currency needed to craft Level 40/41 Magic tier armor and weapons. 25 needed per armor piece.

Currently pearls and mountain hearts are still needed for the weapons.

Some of us are getting close to max level and are looking at legendary gear. The world events you do along the way drop mats that are used to craft them, so I suggest avoiding crafting lower level gear and just use dropped loot. It's a LOT of mats:

Dancing Spark - 260
Essence Seed - 310
Mountain Heart - 150
Primal Pearl - 430
Ember Core - 420
Zen - 33,000

Some more advanced tinkering...

First, I've noticed using OTT to super sample can cause all sorts of issues with Oculus Dash, so for now I'm keeping that set at 1.0. Instead I'm sharpening with a different program while using foveated rendering to improve performance. It doesn't work with every game and the foveated rendering only works with Nvidia RTX cards, but for the games it does work on it allows me to set my refresh rate at 120 while also getting a sharper image.

Program: https://github.com/fholger/vrperfkit
Reddit Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/OculusQuest/comments/s7lghv/vr_performance_toolkit_combines_openfsr_and/

You'll have to install PER GAME. Copy the dxgi.dll and vrperfkit.yml in the folder of the .exe of any game you wish to apply this to. Edit vrperfkit.yml (using Notepad or similar text editor) for the settings you want.

So far I've found the foveated rendering enough to give me a nice performance gain, so rather than upsampling I'm using the other half of the tool just to sharpen. To do all this, I change the following settings:

upscaling method: cas
renderScale: 1.0
sharpness: 0.5 (still playing with this)
fixedFoveated enabled: true

For a more detailed explanation... CAS is the sharpening method of upscaling. RenderScale typically will render at a lower resolution and then upscale, but setting it at 1.0 will prevent it from rendering at a lower resolution. Sharpness applies more or less sharpening between 0.0 and 1.0.

My advice if you want to use this tool...

Nvidia RTX users: CAS sharpening and foveated rendering
Non-RTX for performance gain: Keep defaults to use upsampling.
Non-RTX for image clarity: CAS sharpening

If you want to see if it works in the game, you can use the hotkey CTRL+F1 to see if a red ring appears in the periphery. I'm not sure if this only works to show foveated rendering or works regardless.