The Highs and Lows of Playing Ring Fit Adventure for an Entire Month - ThisGenGaming

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I was gifted a copy of Ring Fit Adventure for my birthday last year (if you want to check the review, you can do so HERE) and when the “lockdown pounds” started getting out of control, I set myself a challenge: I’d play Ring Fit Adventure 20 to 40 minutes EVERY SINGLE DAY in February and cut down on the snacks! …I didn’t even last a single day when it came to not snacking at all. 😅 But I did manage to keep up with the training, so let me tell you all about my epic journey of persevering through this herculean task! (this may be a slight hyperbole) So let’s lay down the groundrules first: Have 20-40 minutes of physical activity in Ring Fit every day (≠ time playing) Stop drinking sugar-rich carbonated drinks (Tournée Minerale!) No “seconds” during lunch & dinner Avoid snacking too much (this is the worst) I kept track of my weight every morning and also jotted down the minutes of physical activity according to Ring Fit’s tracker. It’s important to remember that this doesn’t equal game time: any time spent in the menus or progressing through the story isn’t counted. Some days there’ll be less activity simply because it was a story-heavy section in the game and I ran out of available time. But instead of already making excuses now, let’s just get this article going shall we? First things first, let’s get that weigh-in done: Yep, that’s right: 75.7kg. Now to put this into perspective; I’m around 1.74m high and not very muscular (I spend most of my waking hours just sitting behind a desk or hanging on the couch) and while this may not seem out of proportion, I’ve gained around 8-9kilos in 2020 and it was only ticking up. So, first day of Ring Fit, I’m motivated, let’s do this! I had a pretty good run, coming in at 31 minutes of activity and beating most of an entire world in the game (the single-player adventure has 23 worlds). I ran a few miles, got my heart-rate up and showed those exercise-inspired monsters who’s boss. I was feeling pretty good about myself. “This will be a huge success”, I remember thinking.But what did the scales have to say the next morning? Day 1 – 75.1kg 😲 Wow, I lost 0.6kg, this is going great! Ok, we can enter day 2 with a great dose of motivation. Muscles aren’t sore, I’m in a good place emotionally. If we keep this up, the pounds will fly off every day and I’ll be ripped by the end of February. I’m sure I’m totally not getting ahead of myself and setting myself up for failure and disappointment. I only clocked in at 22 minutes of physical activity on Day 2, mostly because I spent way too much time mixing smoothies and doing minor sidequests in the game, which, if you remember, doesn’t get counted in the total. Still, two-thirds of yesterday’s time should have some effect, right? Let’s wait until morning and get back on those scales… Day 2 – 75.0kg 😐 Ok, ok, still going down. That’s a good sign, even though it’s not spectacular. It’s not like I’m expecting miracles here (inner voice: “actually, you are…”) Let’s get on with Day 3’s regime!I managed 23 minutes of physical activity, this time doing a lot of the optional minigames. They can get quite intensive if you’re aiming for S or S+ results: lots of pushes, running in place and squatting. (Dear lord is there A LOT of squatting in this game…) It should be enough to make a dent in the weight, right? Day 3 – 74.8kg 👍 Another 0.2kg shaved off. We’ll be down to the target weight of 70kg before we even reach the month’s end! With a lot of vigor, I managed to squeeze in 24 minutes of physical activity. With a full-time job and 2 kids begging for attention after hours, it’s important to realize that I have to keep doing this during my lunch break. Most often even before eating as to not get any reflux. If I keep this pace up, this will go smoothly. I am a rock. My perseverance is unwavering. Let’s weigh-in! Day 4 – 74.8kg 🤔 hmm, maybe the scales are broken or I didn’t stand in the right place. Let’s do that again.. NOPE. Still 74.8kg. Must be the fatty tissues slowly turning into muscles I tell myself, as I put in another 23 minutes of work that day. I’m sure the one-day standstill will have just been a fluke… (you can probably guess what’s coming) Day 5 – 74.8kg 😅 Oh-oh. Is this the plateau? Am I going to be stuck here forever despite my efforts? Surely it’s just temporary, I said to myself, as I downed another chocolate bar after spending 24 minutes in front of the TV, making a fool of myself to anyone that walks by our living room window. Tomorrow, everything will be back on track again. Also, a little side note: As soon as I arrived in the snowy area of the game, it also started snowing in real life. Coincidence? I THINK NOT! (Narrator: “of course it was a coincidence…”) Day 6 – 74.8kg 😒 OK. Fair enough. I see where this is going. Didn’t drop a single pound but at least it’s staying stable. Makes sense, my exercise regime has been pretty stable as well. It might just mean I have to … *shudder* … put in extra work? Ok, put in extra work we shall. Yesterday I worked out 24 minutes, today I’ll put in 36 minutes. (reminder: any second not in motion does not get counted) That’ll show them! Doing 36 minutes of exercise in Ring Fit Adventure may not sound like much, but trust me: you’ll work up a sweat. Maybe even enough to burn some fat? 🤞 Here we go, stepping up to the plate… Day 7 – 75.3kg 🙃 I… I gained 0.5kg !!? In all fairness, yes, we had french fries the night before, but that couldn’t make that big of an impact, right? (I want to lie to myself here because fast food is one vice I’m not aiming to let go, it makes me happy) Alright, Robby. This is it. This is the tipping point. This is where choices are made: You either push through Or you give up and go to town on the cookie jar I’m not the quitting kind, so push on we shall! Motivated to tip the scales (quite literally), I put in another 34 minutes. There were lunges, there were overhead circular motions (that’s a thing, I guess?) there were bow-pulls and there were squats (Did I mention the squats already? There are a lot of squats. There are so many squats, the inside of my left knee started hurting from all the squats. At this point, I’ve said squats so many times the word has lost all meaning. . . Squats.) The knee started hurting so much in fact, that I was changing my in-game fitness attacks to avoid any leg exercises. But it’ll all be worth it. (I hope!) Day 8 – 75.1kg 🤏 Well, only 0.2kg, but it’s something, I guess? While I’m having fun writing all of this down, (what a rollercoaster of emotions it has been, this is truly shaping up to be the novel of a lifetime…) I’m growing weary that some of you will grow tired of reading this (after all, why should you care about my progress?) So let’s put this in fast forward for a bit and list the next few days, with the power of emoji’s reflecting my feelings. Day 9 – 75.3kg 😟 — 24 minutes Day 10 – 75.3kg 🙄 — 20 minutes Day 11 – 74.9kg 🤩 — 33 minutes Day 12 – 74.7kg 🤗 — 22 minutes Day 13 – 74.6kg 🤮 — 13 minutes You were doing so well and were at your lowest weight yet! What’s with the sick emoji and ONLY 13 minutes of activity, you ask? Well, I got sick. Really sick. The type where your body just says no. And before you ask: no, it wasn’t COVID. I have IBS and it was just time for that chronic disease to rear its ugly head again and mess up my plans. I still managed to squeeze in 13 minutes, but I went through hell. Day 14 – 75kg 😣 Yep. A single day of less exercise and the graphs are going up again. Fantastic. This is another one of those moments where I really wanted to give up. My stomach was still recovering from the day before, my knee was still sore and my motivation was at an all-time low. Then my son accidentally powered on the Nintendo Switch (kids find it hard to resist pushing buttons) and since Ring Fit Adventure was the game in sleep mode, he wanted to play. I obliged and it made for this cute video: He was having such a blast, that I went back at it, energy restored and motivated to make it through the month. We’re halfway there, we’re not giving up now! 32 minutes of activity, let’s give it our all! Day 15 – 75kg 🤨 Yeah, nothing. A whole lot of effort, involuntary fasting (a lingering downside of the IBS attack earlier, but I hoped it would also contribute to the results) and my kids even cheering me on and what do I have to show for it. Not a whole damn lot. Still we’re not giving in now. But my knee was REALLY hurting and I couldn’t bend my legs anymore. So what do I do? I skipped on the Adventure mode for a day and instead spent my time in the rhythm mode, playing only the ones that require you to push and pull on the Ring. It’s better than nothing! 22 minutes later and I had an S+ ranking on all of them. Day 16 – 74.6kg 😌 Dare I hope? We’re back at the lowest weight yet and we still have almost two weeks to go. While the 70kg goal seems out of the question, it’s going in the right direction again, let’s make our mother proud. 26 minutes of exercise, you ARE A BEAST (hyperbole and sarcasm is a trend here, if you haven’t noticed) Day 17 – 74.6kg 😶 Aha! We’ve hit a plateau again. That’s ok, we can handle this. … If it weren’t for the busy working day. I only managed to squeeze in 17 minutes of exercise, but I’m sure that will not come back to haunt me… Day 18 – 75.2kg 😱 We’re up 0.6kg and if you look at the net loss since the start of February until now, we’ve only lost 0.5kg total. My dad would joke that taking a huge dump would give the same results. I don’t know if that says anything about me, or the average size of his bowel movements, but here we are. 22 minutes of activity today. It also looks like we’re nearing the end of the Ring Fit Adventure campaign, world 18/23! Day 19 – 74.8kg 🥰 Wow. 0.4kg lost in a day, that’s actually progress. Maybe yesterday was just terrible luck? Did I forget to take off a piece of clothing when weighing? Did the scale gain sentience and lie to me? Anything is possible. Let’s do 23 minutes and have pizza to celebrate! Day 20 – 75.6kg 😡 I did this to myself and I deserve this. 0.8kg gained in a single day. We’re back to square one and it’s like those 20 days of effort didn’t even happen at all. To punish myself, I put in 33 minutes of activity and I promise to quit snacking for the rest of the month. (hahahahaha…yeah. right.) Day 21 – 74.7 🤯 Miracles do happen. I dropped almost a full kg in a single day. May I should just write this one down to a “Weird Al” Yankovic song? “Pizza all day and every dayThis cheese ’round the clockIs gettin’ me blockedAnd I sure don’t care for irregularity” Yeah. Sorry if that got Weird. (Get it?) Sorry again. Seems like as good a time as any to fast forward again to when something interesting happens. 22 minutes today! Day 22 – 74.7kg 🙂 — 23 minutes Day 23 – 74.6kg 😬 — 21 minutes Day 24 – 74.6kg 😬 — 35 minutes! 💪 Day 25 – 74.6kg 😬 — 25 minutes Day 26 – 74.6kg 😬 — 22 minutes Day 27 – 74.6kg 🥴 OK. This isn’t working. Are the scales broken? Am I stuck in a timeloop? Has my wife replaced the digital interface with a sticker to prank me? This calls for drastic measures. I’m doing it. forget the 40 minute maximum. I’m going until I can go no more. This is the last day, and I’ll make it count! 46 minutes, ladies & gentlemen! Day 28 – 74.5kg 🤡 I feel like a clown. All that work and I’ve only lost 0.1kg. That’s probably the amount of sweat I lost. Looking at the entire month, I managed to lose 1.2kgs total, which isn’t terrible I guess, but I was expecting more. Was it worth it? I guess. I didn’t lose a lot of weight, but I didn’t gain any either and I had been putting on pounds non-stop since the first lockdown in Belgium. As luck would have it, I also managed to beat the Ring Fit Adventure campaign on the very last day. So there is that. Will I keep playing? Yes. Not every day like a madman, I’ve learned the hard way that you need to let your body recover. My knee still hurts. I’ll play the game 3-4 days per week from now on, but I’ll do it at my own pace. I’m not writing another article like this one, but I do hope you’ve had a chuckle at my expense and that’s worth a lot to me as well. To reward you for making it this far down, here’s a graph. Because everyone loves graphs. What I expected was to see a graph where a spike in the red line (more activity) would translate into a drop in the blue line (weight in kg) but it didn’t seem to have that much correlation. Luckily, if I were to add a third line representing how physically fit I feel, it would be a slow incline going up over time, so I am going to keep it up, if just for that. Do YOU want to lose some weight playing videogames? You’re in luck, I made a list of the best games to do so!