Kid loses 150 pounds in 5 months playing game.

[Strategyking92]

EDIT: damnit, I can not correctly make a thread title if my life was on the line. ("5" is supposed to say "18") I'm sorry guys, but I think I might just be dislexic or whatever.

Roll over, Wii Fit: there's a new get-fit game in town, and it doesn’t even need a console. Seventeen-year-old Georgia resident Taylor LeBaron lost 150 pounds in just 18 months after he devised a weight-loss strategy using lessons he learned from playing difficult video games.

Taylor LeBaron before and after.

LeBaron was interviewed on the Today show, where he told host Meredith Vieira his staggering story. Having tipped the scales at 297 pounds at the age 14, LeBaron decided to approach his weight issue as though it were a game.

In his system, there are allies, enemies and money. The basic idea is to work with allies (exercise, healthy foods), avoid enemies (junk food) and make money (burned calories equal cash). If, at the end of a day, the player has burned more calories than he or she has consumed, that's a victory.

Now 150 pounds lighter, Taylor LeBaron's victory was pretty substantial, leading to both a website and even a book about the "Video Game Diet."

The underlying premise at work here is hardly new -- a quick Yahoo! search for 'Budget Calories' yields a modest 13.4 million results -- and neither is the notion of turning fitness into a game. But if a prime argument in favor of fitness games such as Wii Fit and Your Shape is that they're cheaper than a gym membership, then Taylor LeBaron's 'Ultimate Fitness Game' wins the debate. At most, it's the cost of a book; at least, it's free. Now that's a game worth trying.

 

http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/plugged-in/teen-turns-diet-into-game-loses-150-pounds/1385415

 

 

 

 

 

Oprah would be proud.