Please don't let gaming consume your life | Hacker News Reader

Please don't let gaming consume your life

buildstarted.com

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Over this past weekend a good friend and coworker passed away. He always had a good heart and would do anything he could to help you out. It was certainly a shock.

Monday morning he didn't show up to work. He always calls or sends an email if he won't be in but nobody could get a hold of him. I got a bit worried since I knew he was playing Diablo 3 since it came out on Tuesday and I've heard of people dying from exhaustion and what not from playing video games so much. I didn't want to think that but it had occurred to me. Especially since nobody has heard from him since late Saturday. I had called his landlord and asked about him. (The landlord, Russ and I are all good friends and we've known each other for a while) I was heading over and she was going to let me in but apparently she got too worried and went in anyway. She found him at his computer. He apparently had a heart attack. Poor gal shouldn't have had to do that. I kick myself for not going there immediately. I had gone in anyway at the request of the Fire Department to find his identification and cellphone. Not a minute goes by that I wish my memory of him had not been sullied in that manner.

I sincerely hope that he went quickly and didn't suffer, unable to contact anyone for help.

He was only 32 years old.

Please, if only for yourselves, take time out of your day to get some exercise. Go outside and enjoy the sun. Ride a bike. Do something active. Video games are great fun when played in moderation. This may be an extreme example but take it as advice to not go overboard. Or at least don't do it alone. He took 3 days off and played Diablo 3 pretty much the whole time. He called in and asked to take Friday off as well. We are placing the blame on ourselves at work wondering if we made him come in on Friday would he still be with us today?

It saddens me that we tried to get him to be healthy. Work offered to pay for a gym membership. Friends coaxed him to exercise and eat better. He took us up on our offers, if only for a short while.

We should have tried harder.

He will be missed greatly by all who knew him.

<img src='http://aws.buildstarted.com/russell.png' Title='Russell Shirley' /><h1>Russell Shirley 1979-2012</h1>

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There are more subtle ways of gaming ruining your life, as well: slowly losing the drive to do anything more than what's necessary to pay the cable bill, rent, and the gaming subscription. Slowly the only friends you have are people you know from your guild. When the only source & output of creativity and energy are all wrapped up in playing a video game.

I've also seen people similarly consumed by pornography, alcohol, gambling, day trading, and I'm sure other things I can't think of now. Pot. I think any of those things can have their place, but please maintain connection to people who can and will say something if you start going overboard.

For instance, I'm in a pretty good place right now and still gave parental control to a friend for the D3 release, just in case. Six hours a week is arguably still too much, but seems reasonable to me, and they won't budge because A) I asked them not to; B) they care. That I've hit that limit is a good sign that I may not be as well off as I thought I was ;)

Take care of each other, and yourself.

... day trading ...

Well, if you're a successful day trader I'd say rather that the normal rules for not letting work consume you, rather than play. If you are unsuccessful, then it probably does fall more in line with a gambling problem.

I think the point was more that the psychology of the disorder is independent of what society chooses to call the activity.

> When the only source & output of creativity and energy are all wrapped up in playing a video game.

One day I imagine we'll be able to map real world problems to video games, in a way that doesn't require knowledge of the solution to create the mapping.

Programming itself is very similar to a game. If someone could make it into a virtual world, where I "write" code simply by putting together various machines in 3D space...well, that would be fun :)

I believe someone already did this in Minecraft.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/09/minecraft-users-go-wild-b...

Not to feed the addiction, but that's pretty much exactly what SpaceChem does. You're programming, without programming. And you have some very clearly defined limits, letting you be remarkably creative with your solutions.

Now then, that doesn't apply well to a real world problem, but there are definitely parallels.

I love SpaceChem! Fantastic game...though when I'm playing it, I think "I should just be programming instead." If only SpaceChem had more freedom and could actually create code.

Spacechem is essentially dataflow programming. Unfortunately the canvas size is to small to do general purpose computing. If you could have a lot lot more reactors, then you could encode useful data in the molecules and use the pipelines as queues to simulate memory buffers and, well, obviously queues.

Already being done in at least one important domain: http://fold.it/portal/

The real zen moment is when you realize you don't need someone to "gamify" life for you, but can simply choose to see life as a game.

Or you could be a realist and recognize that some people need help to see life and problems as a games :)

> consumed by pornography, alcohol, gambling, day trading, and I'm sure other things

other things being startups?

That's a good point. The health-risks of overwork seem to match well those of having too much 'fun'.

My guess is that the hidden psychological motivation is the same: to avoid addressing personal problems.

Exercise can help but even there, it depends. If you keep moving your body around forcefully for extended periods you risk heart disease and stroke, e.g. dancing plague of 1518.

Or how about work in general? If doing something 6 hours a week is borderline what is doing something 40-60 hours a week? Assuming most people work for money, isn't this just an extreme cultural addition to money?

I don't think it's fair to say it's an addiction to money. That may apply to some professions but a lot of people working 40 hours a week are just making enough money to get by.

My work, as in day job, usually consists of 3-4 hours working with 3-4 hours having lunch, chatting with colleagues, staring at the window, reading reddit/HN/LJ, doing some 'transparent' research on my startup. And that's when I'm working hard.

Working on my startup could easily drag me into a 8-10 hours race with only a few tea breaks.

If by addiction to money, you mean necessity for it to pay the bills, then this is true for most workers.

I suspect those of us electing to work upwards of 60 hrs/week at startups have other issues to work out beyond the allure of money.

How does this compare with what can be considered a 'gym' addiction. Is it ok when it is exercise? What is too much? What about work, startups? I rock climb at least 6 hours a week, it's not bizarre to hear someone dying from rock climbing though.

Psychological addiction is never healthy for the mind, no matter what the stimulus is.

That being said, spending an exorbitant amount of time devoted to exercise is generally better than spending an exorbitant amount of time devoted to passivity.

That's a very life stylist point of view. Who's to say that exercising, producing useful things to society, or social interaction is in ANY way "better" than spending your days playing video games?

I for one am an avid gamer and I would rather game than quite a large number of other activities that people find rewarding or fulfilling, but I don't go write on some blog saying that they're wasting their life away jogging down the street or writing Dragonlance novels.

Everyone should keep their negative opinions about gaming to themselves, much less people die playing video games than pretty much every other activity on the planet.

As a gamer myself, please understand that I don't have anything against gaming in general. However, I can think of an objective way in which producing "useful things to society" is better than gaming, which is that if everyone chose to spend all their time gaming, we would die from lack of basic necessities such as food, water, sanitation, etc. This would, of course, cut short the amount of gaming we could all do.

So, obviously, we have no choice but for some people contribute to society. Is there a fair way to decide who has to contribute, and who is allowed to opt out and play video games all day?

On an entirely different note, gaming probably causes a very significant number of deaths, due to its sedentary nature. Being sedentary is perhaps more dangerous than smoking: http://www.naturalnews.com/001547.html .

So, obviously, we have no choice but for some people contribute to society. Is there a fair way to decide who has to contribute, and who is allowed to opt out and play video games all day?

Not really, but we have a way anyway, and it's called money. It's the same way we use to determine who is allowed to opt out and read all day, who is allowed to opt out and go on lots of vacations, and who is allowed to opt out and study something abstruse in college for four years.

> who is allowed to opt out and study something abstruse in college for four years.

College is one of the last bastions of learning for the sake of learning. As programmers who often exalt creation for the sake of curation -- and discovery for the sake of discovery -- I think its better we commend that, rather than condemn it.

I am empathetically not condemning it. I'm pointing out that if we're measuring things by "how useful are they to society at large", it's not obvious that the time spent by a lot of people in college is ahead of four years spent becoming a World of Warcraft expert. But I don't think that's a measuring stick to which we should hold up everyone's lives, which is why I have a problem with neither college graduates nor MMO players.

Well put.

mquander's response took the words out of my mouth. Video games, or anything else mentioned as an alternative to video games in this article, are things you do after you take care of the other necessities of life.

It was clear from the article that spawned this discussion that he was employed and simply took some time off like I did to play D3.

Firstly, I should have been more specific. I meant better physically -- physical activity, even overactivity, is better under the vast majority of circumstances to video gaming.

Secondly, I don't have negative opinions about gaming -- I play a lot of video games myself, in addition to other hobbies. I have negative opinions about obsessions, whether its an obsession with gaming or an obsession with work. (By negative opinion, I don't mean that I judge those with such obsessions poorly; merely that I consider them unhealthy.)

Someone recently tried to convince me, a frequent climber, that the health effects of getting exercise from climbing were outweighed by the risks involved. I did a bunch of research on the subject, and it is very clear that the benefits of exercise massively outweigh the risks of even a dangerous activity like climbing.

It's hard to find statistics for indoor climbing, but for outdoor climbing there is a death for every 320,000 outings. If you go on two outings a week, your chance of dying is around 0.03% per year [1].

Getting the proper amount of exercise (compared to being sedentary), though, can decrease the total risk of year-over-year mortality by a factor of up to 4.5 times [2]. The overall risk of death for e.g. a middle-aged man is something like 0.2% [3], so any significant reduction to this factor compares very favorably with the risk of death from climbing.

So, basically, if your options are either a) be sedentary or b) get adequate exercise by rock climbing, it is better for your health to choose b. This comparison looks even better if you're doing only gym climbing (which is much safer than outdoor climbing).

[1] http://www.allclimbing.com/archive/2009/01/data-on-climbing-...

[2] http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/107/1/e2.full

[3] http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

It's worth noting that those deaths aren't simply evenly distributed either. Of the friends I've known that have had potentially life threatening climbing injuries (fortunately nobody's died yet), they were either doing "expedition" level stuff or were simply stupid (free soloing). There are of course exceptions. Pay attention to what you're doing and don't be an idiot and 95% of climbing injuries will pass you by.

You shouldn't compare the benefits of getting exercise from rock climbing to the chances of dying from it. The choice isn't rock climb or be totally sedentary. You can get exercise in ways where you can't fall and die. What you should compare is the marginal benefit of the additional exercise you end up doing because you enjoy rock climbing more than the next best activity. And, then compare that to the death rate.

So, if you look at the numbers, the risk of death from climbing is very, very low. Really, it's extremely low. You'd have to go on two outings a week for 3,200 years for the probability of your death to have an expected value of 1.0. Or, if you stick to top ropes, a lot longer than that.

Compared to how much you can benefit from the exercise, the risk of falling and dying is really insignificant, to the point that I don't think it's worth debating between climbing and any other common form of exercise.

[EDIT]: Fix an incorrectly worded statement about expected value.

Probability of 1.0? Are you sure you're doing the right math? What's the probability after 6,400 years? 2.0?

I meant expected value, but I wrote "expected probably".

That's still wrong. If you have x chance of surviving each day of rock climbing then you have an x^n chance of surviving n days of rock climbing, not a 0 chance of surviving.

OK, by now we all know that GP meant expected number of fatal accidents.

You keep mentioning death, but death is just the worst possible outcome. What about maiming, paralysis, broken bones, etc.?

My uncle played football in high-school, broke his knee and it's bothered him ever since. He didn't die.

Everything we do has risk, and we shouldn't let it consume us. But I'd also not focus on death in isolation.

The author's making a slightly different point to the one you're trying to argue:

> the benefits of exercise massively outweigh the risks of even a dangerous activity like climbing.

In other words, the risks of heart attack, diabetes and other diseases are worse than rock climbing, even if you go climbing twice a week.

The thing with rock climbing is that it is not just "excercise". It's a hobby, it's fun for those of us that do it. (And if it isn't fun, why are you doing it?). I don't climb to stay fit, I climb because I enjoy it, because it is a challenge. I have a fear of heights, so I get a huge adrenaline rush when climbing. There is nothing like abusing your fears to produce thrill ;)

When I look at my more active friends, dying is the least of problems really. I had four friends who had their legs broken in terrible ways from skating or horse riding, while I haven't even had to go to the hospital since childhood.

Things like that could easily make you more sedentary for the rest of your life.

I'm not sure about climbing, I just don't think the math is as easy as that :)

The quality of life improvement from the added flexibility and strength must be taken into account also. To be a bit vulgar, would you rather engage in overnight activities with rock climber or with a couch surfer? Which one is able to run for the bus? Play with their kids?

(a related issue that really annoys me is when they compare the dangers of ectasy and heroin using the death rate, when the quality of life destruction caused by ectasy is 1% compared to the horror that happens to a junkie)

> So, basically, if your options are either a) be sedentary or b) get adequate exercise by rock climbing, it is better for your health to choose b.

humbledrone, I doubt that's the choice most climbers are making. I'm also a frequent climber (mostly outdoors). If I could not climb, I would not be sedentary - I'd do something(s) else (I already do other activities, too). If I couldn't do anything other than take a stroll every day, I would do that, because I feel better when I move around. Most of the climbers I know are clearly this way - people who can't stand not to be active.

I am pretty convinced, myself, that I'd be better off walking for an hour on safe sidewalks every day instead of rock climbing. I think rock climbing, and other activities in which I partake, put me at higher risk for serious injury or death than a nice healthy walk. How much higher, I'm not sure.

But it's a free society (I live in the USA) and we can do what we want, so I climb, because I'm kind of addicted.

Given the direction that health insurance is taking, I do wonder if people who admit to participating in higher-risk sports will some day be penalized by higher premiums, as smokers are.

I had to quit climbing for my life insurance policy.

When people die from rock climbing, it's because they were careless or because they were pushing the envelope in some way. Rock climbing gyms are very safe - you're unlikely to die there.

Anyway, 6 hours a week at the climbing wall is hardly an addiction. That's more like a hobby.

Just out of curiosity, what about 6 hours playing video games? 10 hours? 20? (20 can easily be 2 a night during the week (chill out after work) and then 5 at night on weekends -- time that could just as easily be spent doing other sedentary things on weekends)

Video games are a leisure activity. They might not be quite as mentally engaging as commenting on HN or programming, but they provide the same functionality.

Making a distinction between time spent playing video games and time spent doing other leisure activities is fairly pointless. Managed properly, there's no real physical difference between playing a video game for 20 hours a week and reading a novel, watching TV, commenting on HN, programming or any other fairly motionless activity. I know that I (as a relatively fit 21 year old) spend quite a lot of time sat in front of a computer. Physically the activity is fairly irrelevant.

Perhaps the only thing that video games have that the other activities I mentioned don't is that they have a fairly high potential to be addictive. I'd imagine most people who've played video games at any point know what it's like to play for 10 hours straight for an entire weekend. You don't have to do that, but people do.

Regardless, a sedentary lifestyle with no regular exercise will lead to health problems which increase the likelihood of death. That's something we've known for decades. Don't count "time spent playing video games", count "time spent sitting down".

Perfect clarification

I thought exercising 1 hour per day was the general recommendation.

A 'gym' addiction is less likely to destroy your life. It's rare for people to go on 36 hour gym binges.

I'm sure a few people die rock climbing, but it's mostly going to be people who get confident, and put themselves in positions where a mistake (or even bad luck) is fatal.

Over-exercising addiction actually has serious consequences on people's health, as it causes stress fractures that are often exacerbated by them trying to "power through it". That being said, few people actually have this sort of problem, and one shouldn't avoid the gym simply out of fear of becoming addicted.

...and one shouldn't avoid the gym simply out of fear of becoming addicted.

Well said.

Premature optimization is the root of all evil -Knuth

Exercise tends to be pretty self-limiting.

Depends on the activity level and all that, but in general, even a few hours a few days a week is the most a person's likely to do.

And I know some ... reasonably well balanced people who do markedly more than that.

One thing about dying during exercise: you're going out doing something you enjoy. And which I suspect puts you in a good place.

You could probably make the first argument in favor of, say, gaming binges, drugs, etc., but not the second.

I spend about 6 hours a week playing chess. I am not sure whether it is a good idea, but has at least one benefit: it gives me a "barometer" for how well my brain is working (in the form of my FICS rating, which is automatically calculated).

Six hours a week? I used to play four to six hours a _day_ of CounterStrike back in college. And let me tell you, that's one of the biggest regrets of my life.

Most of my friends consisted of people whom I gamed with -- I barely made any friends in college. And of course, most of those gaming friendships never developed into any sort of deeper connection. Having made friends "IRL" with whom I have deeper connections than playing video games, I can't tell you how much more enriching that is.

Also, I now have all sorts of interests that require lots of something that I once had but now don't: time. In college, I now understand, I had so much time with which to learn and create. Instead I squandered it all away. I did graduate cum laude, so it's not like I was a total slacker, but I could have spent my time in ways that would have been far more interesting and rewarding than clicking, clicking...

Furthermore, I now have problems with my left hand as a result of holding down WASD so much. That's not something that can necessarily ever be fixed, which is frustrating to me as someone who once played musical instruments. I gave up being able to play guitar and violin for what? For video games?

Yes, I have Diablo 3 and I see that many of my friends are on Hell difficulty now and level 55 or whatever. They did that in 2 or 3 days while I still haven't beaten normal mode. And even though I'm having a bit of fun playing Diablo 3, it can never compare to the enjoyment that I once had playing instruments. And what's sad is that _I knew this_ at the time, but it was so much _easier_ to play games than to do any of these other more rewarding but more challenging activities.

Was I addicted to video games? I don't think I've suffered from any of the more classical addictions like alcoholism, so I can't fully compare. But in retrospect, I think that I was. I was always interested in games as a kid (playing NES), but I think that I really turned to games after a particularly traumatic event in my life. From that point on, gaming became an outlet for psychological stress and personal insecurities. And as time went on with me using gaming as a bad coping mechanism, additional negative effects accrued: for instance, I lost that drive in life which boredguy8 mentioned.

Well, I'm rambling a bit now... but what I wanted to convey was that if you find that what I said about my relationship with gaming resonates with you, please take some time to reflect upon yourself and the way in which you are using the gift that is your unrepeatable life. Examine yourself and see if there are perhaps deeper problems with which you need to get help, problems which are being masked by gaming. And if you can't figure this out through self-examination, please find someone who can help you. There's more to life than playing games.

This discussion raised an interesting thought in my mind: what if CounterStrike was seen as a worthwhile sport by society? If the annual CounterStrike champion was seen as on a par with top sportspeople? If people like muraiki could say "yeah, I trained pretty hard for CounterStrike in my college days. Almost went pro but decided I wanted to focus on other things. Got fond memories of it though".

That is, is the difference between "good" and "bad" obsessions purely subjective and cultural? (Example of a good obsession: recently I read the book "Mastery", where the author describes his years of practicing Aikido almost nightly. Aikido is probably close to useless in real life but the author was greatly enriched by his training. And the enrichment wasn't despite the fact his training was often repetitive, it was because it was so repetitive and "dull").

Or is there an objective criteria for distinguishing between good an bad obsessions? Here's my criteria, good obsessions are good for at least one of:

- your health - your wealth - your social circle - etc

And bad obsessions are bad for at least one of those. So if you're an avid gamer, but you don't let it go so far as to effect your health, and you actively go to LAN parties or gaming expos and make real friends through that, then that's a healthy obsession.

Or if you're an online poker player or day trader that loses significant money, that's an unhealthy obsession (because it would be rational to stop). If you make money, then it's a healthy obsession. If you only lose insignificant amounts of money, then it's just a hobby and isn't really good or bad.

I actually only admitted to myself this year that I'm actually obsessed with startups. I realised that most close friends I made over the last few years had ever a strong interest or active involvement in entrepreneurship and instead of trying to fight it (eg, like thinking it was kind of lame that I've been to more tech conferences than music concerts), I should just double down on that and build a social circle out of my startup obsession.

You make good points. "Is there an objective criteria for distinguishing between good and bad obsessions?" I think that the nuance we are trying to capture is the difference between being passionate about something and being obsessed. And I think that where we can draw the line is at the psychological health of each person, although it might not be the most objective measure. Let me explain.

My wife was a national champion in college soccer. She ended up switching schools, but for the time that she was playing college soccer she got nearly full tuition. She certainly was in top physical shape. These all seem like good accomplishments, but she always tells people that she wishes she hadn't done soccer. There are small reasons like the wear and tear on her body, and her feeling that she would have more greatly enjoyed piano (which she's since taken up again).

But ultimately, the thing that she says bothered her the most was the kind of person that competitive soccer turned her into. The effect upon her personality and the way she treated other people was very negative. I won't relate the adjectives that she uses to describe herself at the time, but what's important is that the dividing line for her as to whether all her effort in soccer was worth it or not was _the kind of person it made her become_.

I'm not a psychologist so I can't really go much further with this. It probably isn't the most objective criteria, as it depends on one's value system. Certainly there are exceptions, like an alcoholic who thinks that he is really enjoying life. But if we were to talk about what seems to be more subtle obsessions, as opposed to chemical addictions, the one thing I can see that is common to both my wife and I -- her having done something that most people would have valued and I having done something that didn't result in much positive benefit -- is that neither of us liked the type of person that our activities turned us into.

What's critical is that neither of us were able to understand this until we were able to step back from our passion/obsession and look at it from the outside, as if we were a third party. We had to be able to step apart from our activity, look at ourselves dispassionately, and ask, "Is this who I want to be?"

Now, the situation you describe is a little different. To succeed as an entrepreneur requires constant education, which necessarily includes making many connections with other entrepreneurs for learning and support. Certainly someone who spends all their time consuming music might not be making the most out of their lives, but someone who spends all their time away from their family at tech conferences will also be missing out on very important things. I don't know your personal situation, but I think it does come down to your psychological well-being.

Your wealth, your social circle, even your health and your life can vanish in an instant. Whether a recession destroys your 401k, your friends leave you for other interests, you are diagnosed with a disease, or you die in an accident, there is no guarantee that any of these things will continue to persist. That's not to say that they aren't worth laboring for, but recognizing the ephemerality of these things can help give us a new perspective. What I try and ask myself is, "If I died in the next moment, would I feel that I have lived?"* That question can help me choose between another hour of Diablo 3 and spending some time with my wife, for instance. :)

Edit: For the sake of being perfectly honest, my question is a little bit different as it is based on my value system, which I'm not certain the HN community appreciates. I tried to put forth a question that most people could interpret and apply to themselves. But for me, the question is, "Do I love my God, and do I love my neighbor as Christ demonstrates His love for us, even unto death?" There are all sorts of ways -- even in soccer and video games! -- that can help me answer this question with a yes. And that's why I think the question of passion vs obsession is a difficult line to draw. To not disclose this would make me feel dishonest, but I admit that I'm reluctant to fully explain this because of the way the tech/scientist community generally feels about religion.

I've had conversations on similar aspects to this many times. There are many psychological issues involved but the highlights are:

1. People eat for many reasons, sustenance being only one. People eat for enjoyment, because they're happy, because they're sad, to deal with stress, as a substitute for something else arguably more destructive and so on. The sooner you can adjust your mental view to treating food as nothing more than fuel, the better off you'll be;

2. American cities with their car addictions make it incredibly easy to lead a sedentary existence. Biking is a somewhat hazardous option that's not always realistic. The ideal exercise (in times of reward-for-effort) is probably walking. I live 7 minutes from work and the absolute minimum steps I could take in a day is probably 5000, maybe 6000 (I have a pedometer). 8000 is more common, which is still a bit low (10,000 is recommended). Live 10-15 minutes from work and walk to and from work every day and you massively better off;

3. People treat diets and, to a lesser extent, exercise regimes as a transitory effort to get back to some goal weight or fitness level, at which point they seek to return to the previous behaviour. This is a mistake. You're getting older. Your metabolism is, all other things being equal, slowing down (it requires more effort to keep it up at any rate). You should view a dietary change (in particular) as a lifestyle change, not a temporary adjustment;

4. Psychological addiction may not be as "obvious" as physiological addiction but its effects can be very real.

I'm sorry for your loss. It may sound callous but ultimately we are each responsible for our own well-being. If someone chose to die that way, it's sad but there's not much you could do. You have to choose to be helped.

Concerning 1, I personally believe that on the flip side, having an intimate knowledge about food is beneficial to health. Being able to have at least some awareness of what you put into your body allow you to be aware of what constitutes a sensible portion, and being able to appreciate various nuances of food beyond fat, salt, and sugar will generally result in healthier eating.

Extended destructive binges are usually a symptom of some other emotional stress, and I presume that regular eating habits aren't going to be followed, anyway.

"The sooner you can adjust your mental view to treating food as nothing more than fuel, the better off you'll be"

Better off how? Eating for enjoyment is one of the best pleasures in life. To quote someone else, if you spend your life eating no butter, no lard, no salt; you're gonna feel like a damn fool lying on your hospital bed, dying from nothing.

As mentioned earlier, I am waaaaaaaay overweight. That, of course, means that I'm at risk for heart disease, diabetes, and all that jazz. So when I found myself sitting in my chair with shooting pains and numbness in my left arm, and severe chest pain, my first thought was "well shit, time to call 911 because I'm having a heart attack". To make a long story short, the actual cause of the symptoms I felt was a combination of a herniated disc in my neck and a panic attack, but the thought that death is right around the corner, due to something very preventable, is not something you ever forget.

So while I've not lain on my death bed while dying from 'nothing', I can tell you that thinking you're about to die from something in your control (at least partially) is a terrible, terrible feeling. I really can't emphasize how bad a feeling that is. I love butter, but I'd trade it in a heart beat to never feel that again. Who knows, maybe it's the same whether it's in your control or not.

I love butter too and I weight 80kg, I am very tall(basket player level tall). None of those problems.

40 years ago Americans used to eat lots of butter and fats(way more than today) and they were fit.

My advice is:

Forget about eating sugar, not fat. Fat is natural, we had eaten it since man is man, fat is in animals with the meat and all tribes everywere(From Papua New Guinea to the Amazon) have horrible histories about those that did not eat fat(because those that do not become ill as fat is essential for the immune system and heart, among others) .

Refined sugar is not natural, you should buy fruit as it has antioxidants and lots of fiber so you don't become addicted to sugar(fiber reduces your sugar blood concentration orders of magnitude).

Never mix sugar with fat, if you do add lots of fiber, like lettuce or broccoli or fruit(if you don't like them, make an habit and you will like it over time).

Replace refined rice or wheat or corn (flours) with entire grains(integral cereals). They are ugly but way more healthy.

Learn to cook yourself. It took years for you to get where you are and you need to understand that you need years to get out. Don't try miracles but learn how to get healthy step by step.

PD: Oh, and forget about the stupid "calories in, calories out" non sense. Your body is not a Bunsen burner. Your body could take what it needs(and let the remain on your waste) and calories are not equal(even different sugars have completely different metabolism pathways).

Also eat five times a day and never fast.

Better: get a mentor that really knows, not a person that just has a title but someone that has result under her belt.

Eat five times a day and never fast is very old school. When I was trying to gain weight I would eat 6 times a day. Watched low fat and low sugar.

But it seems things changed Intermittent fasting is actual working and even a 24 hour fast can be beneficial.

Also Calories in and out are a very easy way to lose weight if you calculate correctly. Lot of people overestimate what they burn.

I practice intermittent fasting and now I can maintain low BF % all the time. while using the 5 to 6 meals a day was great for getting more muscle on with a bit of fat gain. But eating 5 to 6 meals a day on low calorie consumption sucks and is not maintainable in the long run.

Some good material with studies to back it up: http://www.leangains.com/2010/04/leangains-guide.html http://rippedbody.jp/2012/03/02/why-is-leangains-so-effectiv...

Calories in, calories out is a valid model. It's just not a very useful one. The reason that some foods are better than others even though they have the same number of calories is that some foods give you the feeling of being full, which causes you to eat fewer calories later (e.g. protein). Or some foods might cause you to feel fatigued, causing you to burn fewer calories later (sugar crash). But don't kid yourself, if it's a given that you eat X calories and burn/lose Y calories, then you'll gain weight proportional to X-Y. Choose foods that make it easy to keep that number close to zero.

Eating food makes you happy, but you shouldn't eat food to feel happy. It's an important distinction to make.

One of the best? I know that in my case I enjoyed cigarettes more than most food, but I don't regret giving those up. Being healthy improves your quality of life as well as the quantity; I can surf and do parkour and hang-glide and many other fun things which several of my friends simply can't do. And, privately -- since it isn't polite to bother someone about their weight -- I find this rather sad.

For what it's worth, I'm right in the range for a healthy weight given my height, and I exercise daily. Being able to do parkour would be pretty great, however!

If you're interested, email me (email in profile). I've been training for 6+ years, worked for American Parkour for a while, and currently am on the board of a parkour non-profit.

Enjoying good food doesn't make you unhealthy. For a lot of people I know, it's that misconception that leads them to become so unhealthy. They eat and eat and eat with some yo-yo dieting thrown in for good measure, then give up because it makes them miserable. If you're conscious about how much you eat and how much you exercise, you can eat what you love and still feel great.

Since when is eating unhealthy? I love food (and everything about it) more than most people I know, and because of that I also eat a lot more healthily than most people I know. People who don't care about food are the ones who will eat a big mac for lunch and second big mac for dinner.

Actually, you'll get used to it and probably enjoy the more healthy food a lot!

It's sort of like smoking. Nobody enjoys smoking when they first start. It's disgusting! But they think: "If it's this bad then I can stop at any time" - then they can't. A similar thing happens with coffee and sugar. If you have 3 sugars in your coffee and slowly start to reduce it, then eventually cut it out then for the first few cups when you cut it out you won't like it, but then you'll actually be OK with it. Then you won't be able to drink it with sugar at all!

butter lard and salt are all perfectly fine. portion control and micronutrient density are the problems, not any particular substance.

Eating for enjoyment is one of the best pleasures in life.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I really think this is a sad statement and I truly hope one day you will understand why I think so.

I disagree, eating for pleasure doesn't mean overeating.

Nor does it mean gorging on McDonalds and KFC every day of the week.

It might cost a tiny little bit more to get the fresh ingredients instead of the usual stacks of shitty ready meals and frozen foods, but the variety and the balance (if you shop well) is hard to beat.

I love being able to cook good food, and as a result, the food is enjoyable, and I'm encouraged to learn more recipes so I can enjoy more.

Absolutely. I love cooking with fresh ingredients and hate fast food, and most restaurants for that matter. Although I may love cooking some foie gras a few times a year, what I cook is generally a lot healthier than what a person who doesn't particularly enjoy eating eats.

Please elaborate. I completely agree with the original comment. Good food and drink is easily one of the best pleasures in life.

I feel the same way about yours, actually. I don't want you to get it the wrong way so I'll google it for you: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/self-righteous

Maybe you imagine me stuffing myself with bigmacs. It's not how I see it. My love for food and drinks has led to a love for cooking, wine pairing, and mixology. I don't see how this could be sad, and I doubt that my enjoyment of pleasure will one day disappear.

If your epitome of culinary pleasure is butter, lard and salt, you need to start dining somewhere else.

(while I agree with you that eating can be a great pleasure, one can simultaneously enjoy great food every single day and not look like Jabba the Hutt).

I'm slim, tall, and handsome, and I cook my own food, thank you very much :)

Actually, one of the restaurants I truly enjoy is Au Pied De Cochon in Montreal, where it gets way "worse" than butter, lard and salt. Maybe it's a good thing I live across the continent from it :)

Point #2 really hit home for me. I recently switched jobs and my new job affords significantly less opportunity to get up and walk around. It is essentially in a business park and the city I live in is much more of a commuter city than I'm used to. Any suggestions on how to maintain a non-sedentary life?

I usually go running or hit the gym after work, but a lot of the new research is indicating that sitting all day and then working out for an hour is quite a bit worse for you then staying mobile all day, even if the net amount of exercise is equivalent. Thinking about how much time I spend sitting at a desk is pretty depressing for me.

About a year ago, I picked up a set of Perfect Pushups, those rotating pushup handle things you see advertised on TV. I try to do a set of 10 each hour while I'm at work. Co-workers looked at me askance at first -- probaby still do. I've cited the studies warning about the health risks of sitting at your desk too long. Nevertheless, I try to be discreet.

I still work out most days after work. But the push-ups get me out of my chair during the day, don't take more than a minute to do a set, and give brain and body a little charge.

I recommend something like the Perfect Pushup -- besides all the reasons in their commercials -- because they help overcome the psychological ickiness of putting your hands on the floor (even if it is no dirtier than your keyboard.) With all the effort corporations are giving to getting their employees to walk 15 minutes a day to bring down health insurance costs, I think the Perfect Pushup makers are fools not to promote this sort of office usage for their product.

I used to do something similar. Luckily, I had a cube at the end that faced a wall. After I started feeling some wrist pains I set up a keyboard-timer, a program that was part of Gnome that locked the screen after a given interval of continuous activity. I set it to 2 minutes every 30 minutes that didn't include at least a 1 minute break from typing. During my 2 minute break I had enough time to do a set of push-ups and a set of sit-ups and would alternately go refill my water and go to the restroom. I think it ended up being akin to the Pomodoro technique because I found myself working harder and really getting into the zone to beat the timer.

I also had a period where I bought a new car and started driving to work. I put on about 15 pounds over two months. I realized this and went back to biking to and from work. For me, bicycle commuting is the best way to get exercise because it doesn't feel like wasted time when I would just be sitting in traffic anyway. It can be a bit of a hassle, but I get to comfort myself with monetary savings and benefiting the environment.

Bikes are awesome. I just moved from a college town to a big city for summer internship and I'm toying with the idea of buying a second hand bike for the duration (cheaper than public transit?) but this city doesn't have the same ubiquitous bike-rack infrastructure as the college town, so I'm not sure where I'd park it...

Careful though. A bike has as much chance of shortening your life as lengthening it depending on where you ride it.

I suspect that there are physiological effects from computer gaming. I know that I occasionally will play a bit excessively (though not extremely so) for a few days when I am having other issues, but I have learned to moderate even that because of these things. Among others I find:

1) Interference with sleep. Will continue to see video game images when I close my eyes to sleep and won't sleep well.

2) Changes in how my eyes track things.

3) A general, physical malaise. I will feel a bit of nausea....

I don;t think the deaths are caused by exhaustion. I think they are caused by brain or hormone imbalances caused by the gaming itself.

This is based on somewhat worse evidence than the antivax movement. What you describe largely sound like symptoms of eye strain, probably combined with lack of proper exercise and nutrition. These are unpleasant conditions, but not really deadly in the way you seem to mean. Without clinical or scientific evidence, I don't think we should be spreading pet medical theories Jenny McCarthy-style.

Suspect means "I have a hypothesis." It doesn't mean I have tested it rigorously.

I don't think it is as simple as eyestrain. Also no nutritional changes can be shown during these times, and being sedentary doesn't cause these for me.

The point is you start with observations, you form hypotheses, and hope that someone will test them.

Regarding the antivax movement though, there really are two submovements. The first ("vaccines cause autism") is pretty silly given that the hypotheses that float dont even match the demographic data they claim it does.

The second movement though which I am relatively sympathetic to is a relatively generalized hostility towards vaccine proliferation. This isn't anti-vaccine really. It is rather hostility towards ever-growing lists of mandated vaccines. I know a lot of people who say "I don't care what the CDC says. I am not giving my kid a yearly flu shot!" And many of them also question many of the newer additions to state vaccine mandates as well while often supporting requirements for the older and more major vaccines (polio, MMR, DTaP for kids, not for adults). I don't think you can just lump these together.

> Interference with sleep. Will continue to see video game images when I close my eyes to sleep and won't sleep well.

This effect actually has a name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect

Neural plasticity is an amazing thing. For example in blind people the visual parts of the brain can get rewired to process sound or other senses instead. The flipside of that is that if I spend a significant portion of my life focusing on video game scores, (or how much karma my posts get on reddit), it feels like my brain rewires itself to play those games better - potentially at the cost of other types of performance.

In effect, I think that "garbage in, garbage out" applies to humans too.

People treat diets and, to a lesser extent, exercise regimes as a transitory effort to get back to some goal weight or fitness level, at which point they seek to return to the previous behaviour. This is a mistake.

And it's perfectly understandable. Eating only rabbit food and spending your free time getting sore and sweaty is unappealing for many people. Tell them that they have to do that for the rest of their lives or they won't get any benefit, and plenty will arguably rationally decide not to bother at all.

I'd like to see more focus on improvements at the margin. No, I'm not going to cut out all sugar and bread, but if you tell me which of the foods I like to eat are the most and least unhealthy, I can probably make significant improvements while still enjoying my meals. Same thing with exercise; 10,000 steps per day is unrealistic for almost everyone, while taking stairs when feasible and grabbing the first available parking spot instead of wasting time trying to find a closer one is a much easier sell.

Completely agreed that walking to work is great if you can arrange it. Not only is it good exercise, it avoids the car commutes that studies consistently find are terrible for your general happiness.

Exersise health benefits follow a power law. It is damn near impossible to exercise enough to double the benefits of going from completely sedentary to twenty minutes of light exersise a day plus breaking up any long periods of sitting with a minute or two of standing and stretching every couple of hours.

This comment needs to be near the top.

People don't get how much just a TINY bit of daily exercise gives them.

FYI, for the last 6 months I've cut out major sources of carbs. No rice, pasta, bread or potatoes, and no obviously super-sweet stuff (sugar, sodas, etc), and very sweet fruits (apples, cherries, pineapples, grapes...) only in moderation.

I still drink beer. I make occasional exceptions (been eating some chocolate every couple of days recently since someone gifted me a whole damn box). I eat lots of veg (salads, spinach, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc) and huge amounts of meat (anything from fresh steak and home-made burgers - no bun - to chorizo, Parma ham, and other fatty meats). I still eat lots of dairy products too - cheese in particular, nice mozzarella, Camembert, gruyere, emental, etc.

Result for me? I eat whenever I'm hungry, however much I feel like, and always nice food that tastes good, and my weight hasn't budged. I also don't get the 1-3pm carb coma anymore. And I feel great.

YMMV, but this works for me for maintaining weight. For cutting down weight, just combine this with a calorie restriction method and daily weight measurements/charting, as per : http://danieltenner.com/posts/0018-how-to-lose-weight.html

Similar to you - though been doing it just over a year now - dropped about 12 kg (down to 72kg) and feel so much better. I carried a heavy parcel (10kg) up a long escalator the other day, and was pretty worn out at the top - then I remembered that I used to carry more than that all over my body, every day, and it made me so glad I started watching what I ate.

Being rid of the afternoon slump is a HUGE boost for me - I used to flag every day at about 3pm (after a sandwich for lunch) and would always have a chocolate bar and a coke to wake myself up - only then then crash again a couple of hours later.

Now eating too much sugar gives me a headache, and I am happy to steer clear of it. I still have the occasional bar of something, but I don't feel like it's something I need any more, and I am much much happier this way!

So if anyone is considering similar - give it a shot, I follow the 'slow carb' diet from the 4 Hour Body - but basically it's just the post above, except with no dairy and loads of beans.

I live in Cleveland, but I've been working during the week in Chicago for the past year. When I first started spending time in Chicago, I noticed how thin the average person in the city is compared to Clevelanders. A year into this contracting gig, I've lost 35 pounds without much effort. Want some coffee? The good coffee shop is around the block. Want to meet some friends-of-friends for lunch? It's only a few blocks away. Nice night, maybe I should just walk "home" (I bought a condo in Chicago) -- only 1.5 miles. Oh, and because that condo was an icky short-sale condo, I end up doing stuff like scrubbing floors in the evenings. It's the little things which seem to add up. Stocking my kitchen with mostly stuff which is not awful health-wise surely helped as well.

> The sooner you can adjust your mental view to treating food as nothing more than fuel, the better off you'll be

The only reason I can imagine you'd have this idea is if you're operating under the mistaken assumption that "healthy food" and "food that you can enjoy" are mutually-exclusive categories.

This ties into a lot of quasi-religious crap surrounding diet in general, which makes every fad diet an orthodoxy complete with demonic outsiders (foods absolutely prohibited and made to seem inherently unhealthy), canonized sacraments (foods that are held up as perfect and beyond reproach), and the sin-guilt-redemption cycle.

Nonsense.

You can lose weight eating Twinkies if you mind your caloric intake and burn more than you consume. (You'll have to watch your nutrient intake as well, but that's a given. You always need to do that to some extent.) Therefore, you can eat good foods in the right amounts and it'll work. You'll also be more inclined to stay on the diet and make it a true lifestyle change.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/...

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/06/health/la-he-fitness...

I agree with the general idea of your argument, but I wouldn't take the "caloric intake" theory as being the truth, precisely because there's "quasi-religious crap surrounding diet in general", much of it promoted by doctors and nutritionists.

For instance I love meat in general, especially pork stake. My current diet allows me to eat meat and diary products in 1 day out of 4, but when I do, I eat a lot of it, with no restrictions other than not eating after 8 PM. I also get to eat potatoes and even refined carbohydrates, but on different days (so it's a dissociated diet). It's enough to say that my cholesterol levels are really healthy, I have more energy than ever, and I'm losing 11 pounds per month.

And I do satisfy my urges, the only difference being that it's all scheduled and I don't do impulsive eating anymore.

Another thing that I noticed - once you cut out drastically the sugar from your diet and white bread ... food and water taste so much better. I'm now inclined to pick up cooking as a hobby ;)

You might be able to lose weight with a Twinkie diet but that won't cure the diabetes.

The only thing you really get from being one of those "food is fuel" folks is a lot of other folks making fun of you and not inviting you to "Ravioli Night".

You don't wanna be that guy.

"The sooner you can adjust your mental view to treating food as nothing more than fuel, the better off you'll be"

Not true. This is a mechanistic approach to life, we are not machine copies. Machines are copies from us, witch is different.

A machine can not repair itself or reproduce or protect itself against the aggressions of the environment.

What you eat is not just fuel, but way way more complex. You eat proteins so you get aminoacids, vitamins, minerals, oils and water. If you don't eat some specific materials in specific proportions you die, no matter how many calories you give it(energy or "fuel").

E.g you could give your body too much omega 6 fat (cheap to industrial manufacture) over omega 3 fat and your body will start working very bad.

In my experience traveling around the world, the anglo speaking world has no idea what eating well means. Eating for enjoyment does not mean eating pizza, hamburgers or hot dogs, there is tons of healthy food around the world that is simply delicious(look for ancient cultures).

I couldn't agree more, except I've had a pizza in Napoli, the home of pizza, and a 'hot dog' in Germany, the home of the Frankfurter, in the last week, and it was really enjoyable! I miss Ireland for a decent burger though - the beef is much better.

A typical two-stroke engine uses fuel that has lubricant mixed in. Tetraethyllead used to be added to petrol to allow higher compression ratios, increasing fuel efficiency.

The fuel metaphor is perfectly valid.

Definitely agree. Contrast anglo culture with the great "foodie" cultures: India, China, France, Italy, etc.

In China I had some of the best meals I ever had for about $2 - boiled rice and a variety of vegetable/meat dishes with assorted flavours. Of course you have to go as a group to make that style of eating worthwhile, but that was hardly a bad thing. If I wanted a late-night lazy meal, I'd get a plate of fried rice or noodles from one of the little diners -- not super healthy, but way better than Big Macs. In Malaysia I eventually stopped grabbing junk food from the 7-11s (which I did for the first few days) and started buying fresh fruit from the street vendors whenever I wanted a snack. I think Anglo culture in particular has a bad relationship to food (which is a shame, as despite the stereotype, we actually had some innovative cuisine in the past).

http://joshuaspodek.com/food-joy-values

"The sooner you can adjust your mental view to treating food as nothing more than fuel, the better off you'll be;" I am like this. Trust me, it is not that enjoyable. There are two major downside: 1. 90% of all food tastes meh. I seldom go a day without having eaten something I truly enjoyed. 2. You start eating too little, because you feel you haven't exactly run out of fuel just yet. Two can be particularly dangerous, at times I have almost fainted because of it. I truly recommend against training yourself this way.

Having kids also helps you with the "walking" aspect. A daily walk around the 'hood with a stroller, and at a later age combined with some "culture-dependent ball game" time, gives you some "free" opportunities to burn them calories.

P.S. besides, with kids you'll have no time for video games, so that's a solution from another angle ;-)

Gaming? So fast food with no exercise would not have killed him if he had just not played games?

I had a friend with diabetes, he was way over weight. One day we talked about his new apartment, WOW and girls. He mentioned he had a good view of the joggers from his window. I mentioned I am frequently one of those joggers, and you see a lot more of the cute girls that way.

The topic of conversation moved to WOW, and I mentioned how I hate to touch a computer after spending all day at work sitting in front of one.

Despite subtle and not so subtle hints he did not start to exercise and died alone in his mid 30s.

And you know what, a lot of people die exactly the same way, with no gaming what so ever involved.

This whole heart attacks are a top killer, so eat well and exercise deal pre-dates computers by decades.

I hate to touch a computer after spending all day at work sitting in front of one

The funny thing I have discovered is that while I don't like it on a high level of thinking, it actually can be relaxing. As a consequence, I am trying to slowly add physical activities instead of going cold-turkey- it isn't a leap I can make in one day, and finding myself with no stress relief is murderous.

Server died...here's a repost:

Over this past weekend a good friend and coworker passed away. He always had a good heart and would do anything he could to help you out. It was certainly a shock.

I sincerely hope that he went quickly and didn't suffer, unable to contact anyone for help.

He was only 32 years old.

It saddens me that we tried to get him to be healthy. Work offered to pay for a gym membership. Friends coaxed him to exercise and eat better. He took us up on our offers, if only for a short while.

We should have tried harder.

He will be missed greatly by all who knew him.

It's silly to associate this with gaming only. You can say the same thing about getting sucked into anything. I'm sure quite a few people here have coded non-stop for a few days, or pulled some all nighters to meet a deadline. Everything should be done in moderation, not just video games.

It's funny, I completely disagree that "video games are great fun when played in moderation". The "in moderation" part obviates the whole point for me.

That's why I don't play them anymore.

Depends on the game, with something like Diablo 3 you are in small groups in separate instances of the game world all the time. With something like WoW it is true that in a way the more time you have to play the game the more fun/achievement you can have, as it is an open world where you can use your hard earned gear to dominate lesser players and get involved in some very hard coordinated raids.

You are right though, pretty much when I played WoW and raided I had little time for a social life, when I stopped being a regular raider the game lost a lot of it's appeal to me.

How is him having a heart attack in any way related to him playing video games all weekend?

It isn't. We can infer from the rest of the post that the person in question was unhealthy, but OP took an unnecessary shot at gaming. One can argue an unhealthy focus on anything can kill you in the same way, and gaming wasn't a symptom.

Frankly, this entire thread is about as bad as mass media blaming video games when a kid shoots up his school.

> infer from the rest of the post that the person in question was unhealthy

And we can also infer that he was unhealthy, in larger part, due to spending too much time gaming.

> One can argue an unhealthy focus on anything can kill you in the same way

And in this case that thing was gaming. It's a cautionary tale, not an indictment on all gaming.

> And we can also infer that he was unhealthy, in larger part, due to spending too much time gaming.

Very much, emphatically, not. I know someone into World of Warcraft who spends ~40 hours a week playing, and just ran Bay 2 Breakers. Gaming and being unhealthy are very definitely unrelated, and any attempt to paint them as being related is FUD.

If someone is out of shape because they "spend too much time hacking", are you going to blame hacker culture next? Gaming is an easy target. Admit it.

Very much, emphatically, yes:

> Work offered to pay for a gym membership. Friends coaxed him to exercise and eat better.

Instead he was gaming.

> If someone is out of shape because they "spend too much time hacking", are you going to blame hacker culture next?

Yes, in part. BTW, I'm not "blaming" gaming.

Here's a thought, oh, I don't know: it was his fault, not gaming's. Radical concept, personal accountability. It's almost like the choices we make in life shape who we are, or something else absolutely crazy like that.

You responded before I edited to be clear that I'm not blaming gaming. It was his choice but that doesn't change the fact that spending his time gaming instead of getting some physical activity likely had something to do with a 32-year-old dying of a heart attack.

Games that are designed to be very addictive are an easy target indeed.

It's indirectly related. Binge gaming can lead to an unhealthy lifestyle, which in turn can lead to complications such as heart attacks.

First off: I am really sorry you have to lose a friend like that.

But please, don't blame yourself. Asking him to come in or not might well have not changed anything. While gaming certainly can be addictive, he had a heart attack. That has nothing to do with gaming. You can get a heart attack at any moment. Heck, you can have one while sleeping. (You can even have one without any recognizable symptoms)

So, instead I suggest people learn what the symptoms of a heart attack are - so if you or somebody close to you has one, you can actually recognize it and get help in time. Here's one link giving more detail: http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/guide/heart_disease_heart...

First things first, I'm very sorry for your loss; it's never easy to lose a friend, let alone one so young. With that said...

This hit so close to home that it's scary. I'm 24, and my weight hovers between 350 and 385lbs. I've always been fat and otherwise unhealthy. While I don't eat a lot (I definitely eat more than I should, but I don't think that I eat to excess by any means), what I do eat is terrible; that's gotten worse since I moved to NYC and had money to get delivery effectively every night, meaning I eat at my computer and pay no attention to what I'm eating. In my case, it's not gaming but programming that's killing me; I don't get away from the computer and exercise effectively at all, and even if I ate perfectly I'd still be screwed for that reason.

But with that said, blaming programming/gaming/whatever for my health problems is like blaming the manufacturer of my chair for making it so damn comfortable. At the end of the day, it's an excuse to take the attention away from the real issue: sedentary lifestyles are unhealthy and will kill you.

I don't want to get too far off-topic here because this is about your friend, not me or anyone else here, but the focus really needs to be put on a healthy lifestyle, not on isolating one specific component as the failure point. A serious change in my life (and I imagine Russell's) wouldn't involve removing the object of obsession, but changing a million factors, and it's definitely easier said than done; that said, it's something I'm working hard on myself if only because... I want to live.

Edit: Something that I missed while writing this initially, as I got caught up in it.

> We should have tried harder.

I know you say that with the best of intentions, and I know that you're beating yourself up over this, but you shouldn't be. Speaking as someone who's been on the receiving end of that many times, I can't describe how deeply embarrassing it is to be in this position and how much shame is involved. I know you can't exactly hide being this fat, but you damn sure try to put it out of mind and keep it from being a topic of conversation. That absolutely makes it harder to get help. Think of it like someone being a closet alcoholic, but they always reek of beer regardless.

>While I don't eat a lot (I definitely eat more than I should, but I don't think that I eat to excess by any means), what I do eat is terrible

I would argue that you do excessively eat. Contrary to popular ignorance, the reason people get fat is simply due to a caloric excess. The idea is that if your maintenance intake is 2500kcal/day, and you eat exactly that much, you will not gain (store) or lose (use) any fat (energy). So even if you eat three meals a day consisting solely of chow mein and orange chicken from delivery, and all meals add up to be 2500kcal, you will not fluctuate in body fat percentage. Of course, you will otherwise have terrible health due to the high consumption of saturated fats and sodium, but that's another story.

In this vein, I think everyone should tally caloric intake for a week and compare it to their daily caloric needs which can be calculated using all sorts of tools (e.g. http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/CalRequire.html).

Hopefully this discussion is not completely irrelevant, but I thought it was all worth noting. I'm certainly not trying to pick on you either, just thought this was a good outlet.

> that's gotten worse since I moved to NYC and had money to get delivery effectively every night

Small step to health: Instead of ordering delivery, order from a place at least a half mile away, and walk to pick it up yourself.

I'm sorry for the loss of a friend; I don't pretend to know how you currently feel.

That said, I think there's a pretty big leap you're taking from "playing a lot of games" and "had a heart attack at 32." Obviously, I don't know this person; but I do know a lot of folks who have gone on binge gaming sessions who have never had heart attacks.

I'm not saying there isn't any connection or that it didn't contribute in any way; however, let's be honest with ourselves and admit that a binge gaming session, while not in any way healthy and certainly a likely contributor to this person's poor health, most likely did not cause a heart attack.

I don't think the connection the OP is making is that binge gaming session == heart attack. I think it's that the person spent a lot of their time playing games. They spent too much time sedentary and this was the unfortunate result. It's something that can happen easily with games - some people find them very addictive (I don't have the attention span for gaming but I know people who have days where they wake up, play games, and go to sleep). The same result could happen if you sat and watched several movies every day and didn't exercise or eat well.

Considering most desk jobs are roughy equivalent to watching a few movies on end. What do you do then?

It's not so bad at small companies where socialising with freinds is not frowned upon. However at many large companies, spending 30 mins socialising would be frowned upon.

I think the difference is that at most desk jobs you get up every so often to use the bathroom, have lunch, get something from the printer, go to a meeting etc. And at the beginning and end of the day you have to move to go home. The problem is sitting in a chair playing a game (or another activity) and not getting off that chair for to do anything for a very long time (the gamers I know often sit for 12 hours only getting up to use the bathroom for a few minutes).

I honestly don't know very much about this but I think those minor distinctions are very important.

I'm not really sure what this has to do with gaming. Spending days at a time hunched in front of a computer with little sleep is like the quintessential image of working the start-up life. He could have spent those three days working in vim rather than playing Diablo and he'd probably still be gone. More importantly, don't blame yourself for letting him take that time off, a heart attack at thirty isn't something that a day in the office could prevent.

I dunno, I've had some pretty epic hack sessions in my life, but none of them even compare to when I get sucked into a video game.

Diablo 3 came out last week, and I literally had stretches where I didn't even go to the bathroom for 12+ hours. I got severely dehydrated when Mass Effect 3 came out to the point that the effects lingered for a couple of days.

That sort of complete absorption has never come to me while hacking. I might forego sleep, but I've never forgone basic bodily functions while programming, whereas I find it dangerously easy to get into that mode with games.

Out of curiosity, have you been to a gambling environment? Did you find it hard to eat and drink there?

Do you play board games with a similar intensity? What about marathon TV shows, do you wait until the end of an episode (or story arc) before ablutions?

Nope, nope, and nope, but yes on the TV shows.

To elaborate: I've been gambling many times, but have never felt the same compulsion as I get when I drawn into a good video game. Heck, I have trouble sitting at a blackjack table for more than half an hour.

Ditto board games. I've done some all-night Risk games with friends in the past, but those were out of sheer machismo, and no food/bathroom breaks were missed.

On the other hand, for really strongly arced TV shows I do find it hard to tear away. When I discovered the West Wing last week (how did it take me this long to find this show?!) I ended up marathoning the first season over two days, entirely unintentionally.

I might have an addictive personality...

Aww, you saw through my veil of mystery:P I was just curious to see if games are more addictive for you personally then other "common" addictive activities.

I wonder if it's because games and TV have something in common that the other activities don't: A storyline. I personally get a little engrossed in media, but only for a few hours then I'm bored. Games, however, I can play all day. Other activities just don't have the same pull for me.

At what point is it wrong to engineer a product to be addictive?

Tobacco companies are evil for doing this. But when it comes to things like fast food, gambling and games, I hear things like "everyone knows those are bad for you" so you should "be responsible"

Like all things, not everyone submits to urges. But I bet most gamers don't know there are sophisticated teams fine-tuning the gaming experience to maximize time played (or whichever metric). Some people are outmatched by those teams.

I had been thinking about this earlier today when I saw this quote from Bing Gordon: "World of Warcraft has 0% churn from levels 35-40" [1]. Those guys at Blizzard are good.

[1] https://twitter.com/ericries/statuses/204601761560932352 - I put faith in Eric Ries for the accuracy of this statement

Evil comes when the user is expected to lose significant amounts of something for no return.

Tobacco companies expect you to lose years of your life, tens of thousands of dollars and return you yellowing teeth and nails, smelling bad and lessened taste and smell. Evil.

WoW expects your monthly subscription fee and you'll probably put some time into it as well. They don't actually care how MUCH time you put into it, just that you're engaged enough to keep playing. In return they give you fun, a sense of achievement, a vibrant community and new content. Not Evil

Zynga games are boring. In fact they're worse, they're work. They guilt you into playing, they try to manipulate you into harassing your friends, they're designed to nickle-and-dime and get you playing as much as possible. In return you might get a sense of achievement, but you irritate your friends and waste a bunch of time on a game that isn't any fun. Evil.

I think it's always evil to engineer a product to be addictive. Compelling yes, addictive no. If you don't return a positive benefit to the user then even compelling is evil.

There are people who enjoy smoking and playing Zynga games, though. Positive benefit is relative. Just because you don't like cigarettes or Farmville doesn't mean that no one does. The argument that Blizzard doesn't care how much time you put into World of Warcraft doesn't hold up, either. The lower levels have a lot of grinding and the higher levels have multi-hour raids. World of Warcraft has addictive properties baked in to keep you playing, just like Zynga games. You could make the argument that Zynga is "evil" for milking addicted players for thousands of dollars, but Diablo III's auction house creates a similar dynamic. Isn't it enough to say that you think Zynga's games suck, but Blizzard's are good?

That's a very good and important question. It's too easy to dismiss it, because "it's just a game". Still, people do get addicted.

I think this does the dead man a disservice. He was unhealthy, had unhealthy habits, and he played video games because it was easier to do that than other leisure activities. If he were still alive to be offended, would you have said he played too many games, or perhaps that he didn't exercise enough?

There are people who have real, legitimate behavioral addictions to things. There are sex addicts, video game addicts, gambling addicts, even fitness addicts. However, the great majority of people are unhealthy for a large number of subtle and difficult to address reasons. If you've ever known someone who's struggled with their weight, or their general health, you shouldn't be as ignorantly reductionist as the person who posted this.

Video games (almost certainly) didn't kill, or even harm, your friend. His poor health killed him, and playing video games gave him a way to enjoy his free time. I understand the idea that endemic boredom would have saved him, but I think that is the result of a fundamental misunderstanding about motivation.

Also - if he didn't play video games, but was a voracious reader, would you have posted, "Please don't let reading consume your life?" "Writing?" "Programming?" Etc.

I always heard of people in other countries dying while playing video games. I never thought it would ever be someone in this country let alone someone I knew. It's one of the hardest things to hit me in my recent life...so sad...please take care of yourselves out there. Stay healthy.

You may already be aware, but your site seems to be completely non-responsive at this point.

Is there a mirror anywhere?

Posted in full here.

Install this when it comes back to life: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/w3-total-cache/

WordPress (going by your URL structure) is bad at coping with traffic without help.

and by 'here' he means

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4005275

Do you actually think the game was related to his death? If enough people play video games an hour a week it's guaranteed that some of them will die while playing.

I understand that he was marathoning this game but that shouldn't cause a heart attack.

I think the subtext was that his sedentary lifestyle is what killed him.

But how much of that was actually tied to games? Maybe I'm being needlessly nitpicky but I didn't even notice the comment about lifestyle as I first read the article, tucked away near the end.

That's the point. It's an unnecessary shot at gaming, which is why the fact that the person was unhealthy is near the end.

For a guy who took 3 days off work to play D3 and died at his computer? Probably a lot.

Agreed. Excessive video game playing over many years may have contributed towards decline in health and eventual heart attack, but not a 3-day sprint.

Who knows 3 days without sleep puts a huge strain on your body and your heart.

Having spent way more time than is healthy playing WoW I realized one day, after I had spent 12 hours collecting virtual materials to make virtual armor so that I could go with folks into a simulated environment without dying so that I could get other armor that would replace the armor I had made, that there were much better ways to spend a Saturday.

The challenge of course is that it is so damn easy. And by that I mean that one of the things video games have over programming (what I had previously spent 12 hrs on a Saturday doing for fun) was that in the game everything is set up so that you can get right toward making progress against your goal, and you can stop, and then come back later and get right back into it. From power up to 'engaged' was like 3 minutes, vs programming which seemed to have an hour just to get to the point where everything was in shape to work on it.

Since that time, I've been trying to make programming as easy as gaming in that regard. Things like 'screen' can help since you can pop right back into a session, everything is setup your cd path is current, as is your history etc) and stuff like picking one editor and using it everywhere helps too. A USB keyboard is essential because switching between Macbook keyboard to desktop keyboard can generate a lot of mistyped keys. Finally there is the 'questing' system, where in the game you log in and the quests you have to complete are sitting there in a list with a short note about what needs to be done. I use a notebook for that but it has the same effect. Open up the notebook to the book mark and the things that need doing are highlighted and circled, stuff that is done is lined out.

I'm still not there yet, work to do. But I am long past being 'hardcore' in WoW.

How a procrastinator faces a todo list: you read the first item, realize that its a hard one and you should game for a little while so your subconscious can work on the problem and generate creativity.

(But I always end up realizing that conscious effort/thinking about the damn task gives better results).

Not knowing anything about this individual I don't want to make too many assumptions but the broader point here is valid. The whole culture of 'hardcore gaming' is pretty creepy to me. There's a fine line between fun and mental illness. It's too easy to look at this as just a harmless eccentric hobby when, past a certain point, it really needs to be treated more like a serious problem with interventions & rehab. I really dislike how the culture around it is so supportive of obviously destructive behaviors. It's eerily similar to hardcore drug culture at times.

s/hardcore gaming/competitive horseback riding/d

s/hardcore gaming/competitive Go playing/d

s/hardcore gaming/dedicated Iron Man competition training/d

s/hardcore gaming/frequent weekend get-away-ing/d

s/hardcore gaming/dedicated volunteering/d

Perhaps I'm not familiar with the hardcore gaming you've seen, with exception, perhaps, of WoW addiction, but you need to be careful of looking at a particular use of a person's pass-time, or even an entire culture's use of their pass time

Well two differences... one only applies to some of those things. In the case of all of the physically active ones they to some extent self-regulate. There is really only so much power-lifting you can do in a week, and very few ways around that max (even assuming steroid use)

But I think the more relevant issue is far fewer people seem to be prone to obsession in any of those other spheres. It's not that hardcore gaming is any worse than an obsession with chess, it's that far fewer are obsessed with chess.

I found this article (which came off of hacker news in the first place) to be super relevant. http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html

Does it really have anything to do with gaming?

It's not like he was a physically healthy guy who sat down for a 30 hour Diablo 3 bender and died, right?

Regardless, I'm sad for anyone who dies so young.

Echoing others' sentiments in this thread: I don't see the link between video games and the man's death being all that strong here. I can understand if sharing details of his health isn't something meant for the internet, though, and I am sorry for your loss.

As someone who spent the majority of their teenage years "gaming" (6 hours per day average in an MMO), and despite benefiting socially and financially (you read that right) from it all, I have since quit and become a bitter ex-gamer. I speak with that hat on when I say that this is not an article about gaming and its personal costs. I could write such an article, but it's been done before, and you just end up preaching to the choir. Instead, this is an article about the loss of a friend. We always wish we could have spent more time with friends who have passed, regardless of what their hobbies were.

To close, I will share the reason behind my own transition. It boils down to one simple notion:

Do you want to spend your days living in a world someone else created? Or do you want to build your own?

Maybe he died doing what he loved...

I think this is actually a perfectly reasonable idea. When I look back on past 15 years one of my absolute favorite memories is playing FPS games with my friends, brothers, and father. Those times were more real and more meaningful to me than many other more socially acceptable activities.

But...you shouldn't die at 32 because you're eating burgers and playing games too much. That's a terrible way to go, and it ultimately means you get far less time gaming!

My uncle was killed 6 years ago in a plane crash. In the following days and at the services held, many people said that he "died doing what he loved." My aunt said that this was the worst consolation she received.

It's about a game but it can be about anything. Specially, work kills many more people than video games, for exactly the same reasons. (that even include non-computer work)

If you're a gamer and are looking for a way to get some physical activity, I suggest trying out fencing. I recently started taking lessons and I'm having a blast!

Fencing is a sport that appeals to many aspects of a gamer personality: it requires the use of the mind as much as the body; it is competitive; it has clear feedback as to whether you are improving or not. It will get your blood pumping and also stretch you out -- something that most of us need since we probably are sitting at computers all day!

When I first thought about trying fencing I watched some videos online and had no clue what was going on. Things happened so quickly that it seemed like people were just moving at random to get a touch. But now that I've fenced, I see why fencing isn't so popular as a spectator sport: in order to appreciate what is going on, you have to understand the techniques. It is only then that you can appreciate the brilliance and athleticism of a high level fencing match. It's much like watching chess or go: largely indecipherable to a layman.

I know that I don't have the patience or discipline to run on a treadmill, but fencing is a different story... and it's even motivating me to the point where I might hop on a treadmill or jump rope to improve my fencing. Give it a try!

Regular exercise really is the solution. I know exercise makes me more hungry to the point where everything tastes good. And if you've put in enough effort, you will not want to waste that by eating junk. Solid exercise involves a lot of physical pain and once you learn to deal with that your willpower will be off the charts and sticking to the right food will be a breeze.

I was out of shape until I did P90X last summer and now I'm a different person altogether. You would be surprised how much can be done in three months of proper hard work. But it does not have to be a full blown fitness program. People aren't always aware of the options. When thinking of weight loss, jogging is the first thing that pops to mind. I have always found it extremely challenging mentally and I was never even overweight. Commit yourself to a few basketball games a week, or a cycle, a climb, a hike, skiing, whatever you enjoy. If you push that little bit harder every time and get some sweat going, get your heart racing, you will be surprised what it will do to your body.

Also a tip for motivation is to focus on performance. If you can run faster and farther, jump higher or feel better, just keep progressing and the weight will come down naturally.

I used to be a gamer but then I realized something. While gaming is fun, sometimes fulfilling and a source of "flow" it's ultimately without higher meaning. Imagine spending hundreds of hours playing WoW, DI:3 or whatever, now imagine what you could have done with that time.

It's better to game your life than spending your life gaming. I Enjoy gaming in certain amounts,prefer gaming over TV, but prefer creating, socializing and learning over gaming.

Sorry to hear about your friend Ben.

I actually had to kick the video game habit I have to get my electronics cert by August (or I am jobless, will be the first time in 30 years) and I haven't played any game at all since early December last year. Console (an apt word) or PC games certainly are addicting, some people say it can't be since it isn't an opioid drug (some say the same thing about weed) but it's your world when you're alone.

It will be nice if, maybe, someday technology will be so seamless that you won't sit and browse the web or play video games maybe it will be a part of our lives all the time but more subtle. Like the telephone was so futuristic when it came out people had no idea it would become so ubiquitous and easy to use. Maybe information won't have to be sifted through on Google or Duckduckgo it will just be there when desired.

I remember reading about stimulus response reward training given to US Army soldiers so they would instinctively fire at the enemy it pretty much removed the thinking part of the procedure. That's what it seems like for me anyway when I played, really I had trained myself to play without thinking and kills in the game were my reward.

I'm sorry you had to lose a friend. I understand that you're trying to find meaning and place blame but playing a game for 3 days is not likely to end your life. It's possible he had an underlying medical condition. If he had been sitting for 3 days straight writing code would you blame it instead?

I wasn't placing blame on the game but on himself. The game was the final straw that broke the camel's back. Yes, there were other health issues which I addressed later in the post.

People who are 32 years old don't die of sudden heart failure for lack of a gym membership or a poor diet. He almost certainly had a serious health issue, possibly one he wasn't aware of. That kind of progressive heart disease comes slowly, with lots of warning.

Gaming certainly didn't help him, but it certainly didn't kill him.

The title of your post blames gaming pretty directly.

Sorry in advance for this but... Is there chance that this could be a hoax? It's not that it couldn't happen but I couldn't find the obituary or any other reference to this other than the same text reposted on another blog.

Also Buildstarted's account was just created to post this entry, which it is not helping me to sorting this out in my mind. I don't want to be skeptical but I take very serious these kind of news and it would be really sad that somebody would be joking with these matters.

Kickstarter idea: A USB connected exercise bike with a keyboard and mouse tray on it and a VESA display mount. If you don't pedal fast enough the screen dims. If you stop the screen blanks and the network connection drops.

You'd need a "break" button that you can recharge every so often so you can coast or grab a drink, but otherwise it'd be the ultimate "hard core" mode for gamers.

How sedentary does one have to be to be at risk of a heart attack at age 32? This story seemed a bit odd to me, like it could have been entirely contrived. I certainly hope it wasn't.

Exercise (really just walking and getting up on a daily basis) is vitally important, and for those of us OCD enough to program or game 12 to 18 hours straight, it is important to remember such facts.

One of the problems is right here on this thread: lots of conflicting advice, everyone claiming their advice to be true.

Some have questioned whether it was gaming that killed him, obviously playing video games won't give you a heart attack. However sitting in one place for hours on end could give you one (or a stroke). Playing games, coding, flying, in all those cases you should be getting up every now and then.

> We are placing the blame on ourselves at work wondering if we made him come in on Friday would he still be with us today?

I'm sorry for your loss. It is not your fault. Please don't beat yourself up over it.

I know how this feels, I've experienced survivors guilt over my direct family before.

These days I won't get near an addictive game - I tend to favor games that I can easily pick up and put down, like collectible card games or board games. Also, as a "game designer" I often question whether I should intentionally make my game non-addictive.

Managing distractions is incredibly important, be it reading useless stuff online, or gaming.

Remember most jobs are like gaming. Sitting at a desk for hours on end, maybe a few breaks.

I don't think it is gaming alone, it is bad life styles in general. The worst part is most people HAVE to adopt that lifestyle for a desk job.

I think it's really interesting to see so many people here jumping up to defend gaming. Nobody is blaming games or gaming, the original post simply states that like everything else, you should make sure that you moderate the amount of gaming you do and also try to do things that are good for your body. I think it's a good message for Hacker News given the number of gamers we have here (I can easily log 20-30 hours a week when I have a new game and some free time).

If you game a lot but you don't let it get in the way of your health then this message wasn't intended for you (except perhaps as a cautionary tale).

So hard to decide if I should read this article or play Skyrim.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com